A sketch of Claude Hall, 
circa 1976, by Chuck Blore

"MURDER at the Busted Bird Cafe"
by Claude Hall

Chapter 7

She dragged me out of Martoni's in spite of my best efforts to stay. It's very strange how a little girl can do that sort of thing to a guy six-foot-two, especially a guy who almost worked out with weights once.

"I can drive," I said.

"I'm already teed off at you. Don't give me any more trouble.

"My pickup's at the station. I can't leave it there. Someone might steal it."

"Don't be silly. Car thieves have better taste." She opened the passenger door to her Maseratti.

"In."

"I'm being insulted," I said.

"So's your pickup."

Maserattis are build too low to the ground. You sit up in a pickup; you sit down in a Maseratti. This caused a minor problem with one of my legs. I'm not sure which one. It was outside the car and I couldn't get it through the door. One of the problems was my boot. Most disc jockeys wear sneakers. I wear boots. I worked for a few months at a radio station in Mexia; you wear boots in Mexia or they chase you out of town. That's where I'd first met C.W.; he came into the radio station one day and we'd got to shooting the bull and a few cows and became, I guess, what would pass for distant friends in the radio business. After all, the choices sometimes aren't all that sensational.

Jo tried pushing at the boot with her hands, figuring that if she got the boot inside the car, the leg would have to follow. Or vice versa.

"I hate boots," she said.

I guess she finally succeeded, because the next thing I remember was the Maseratti speeding up Benedict Canyon.

Jo's pad is tucked on the side of a mountain up one of the side streets off Benedict. There's an old oak that fills the sky and has huge meandering branches that reach over the house and over most of the yard and even some of the hillside.

The bungalow is small, quiet, peaceful, and secluded away from the world. This is good, because she has a dog that will bite anyone who gets within range and some of those he has to chase.

Her dog, a cross between a rather large Doberman and two or three prehistoric mastodons, obeys no commands known to man and only a few of those known to Jo. He is old, he is huge, and he is mean. I've never understood why he licks her hand. Anyone else's hand, he will bite off and put in his collection if he gets the chance.

I avoid him. It is no use. He follows me with suspicious glances and is ready to pounce if I even think about touching Jo. We can't even smile at each other unless he's in the living room and we're in the bedroom. And the door locked.

When I woke up, it was obvious that I'd had no problem with the dog. I found myself alone on the living room couch. The house was empty. The dog had probably slept in the bedroom with the door locked. I couldn't even remember going to bed.

I don't know whether I crawled off her couch or fell. But I got out of bed somehow and stood there wishing I had a gun and knew how to shoot one; some bird had a loud speaker in the tree outside and was making a racket.

Mornings, I have long believed, were invented by a masochist. Or General Mills and Kellogs in order to sell corn flakes. Corn flakes were also invented by a masochist, in my opinion. But since there's not much I can do about the situation, I have learned how to tolerate them with admirable aplomb. Mornings, not corn flakes. Some of the time.

I stumbled into the kitchen and boiled some water and had instant coffee. Didn't help. It was still morning.

Jo had no aspirin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Didn't she realize that coffee and aspirin go together? How could a man have coffee without aspirin?

I sat down at the kitchen table with half my usual breakfast.

"So you're alive!"

"Is that a statement or a question?" I asked.

She was attired in a jogging suit and was still sweating and breathing slightly hard. I don't know if dogs sweat or not, but the dog wasn't even winded.

"We had a good run, didn't we, Chuck?"

A man simply can't exist without aspirin. I got up and searched the kitchen cabinets.

"There is no such thing as a good run," I said over my shoulder. "I am of the opinion that joggers should be outlawed; they're a traffic hazard."

"What are you searching for?"

"A gun so I can kill that bird outside that's making all that noise."

"Silly."

"If that mutt resembled anything close to a real dog, he'd go out and attack that bird and kill it."

The dog growled at me.

"Chuck does not hurt helpless animals," she said, rubbing his head.

"He snapped at me the other day."

"That's because he doesn't like you. However, Chuck's in good company. A lot of people don't like you."

She sat down at the kitchen table and ran a towel across her face.

"Name one," I demanded.

She didn't answered. She flung the towel in my face.

"Okay. Name two then."

"For your information, I did try to call you a day ago. You weren't at the radio station."

"I wasn't? That's strange."

"Dude said you showed up drunk and he sent you home."

"You sure?"

"He told me on the phone earlier."

"So that was you," I said. "Don't you have any aspirin around this place? How can a man have breakfast without aspirin?"

"I have some in the bedroom on the stand beside the bed."

"What a strange place to hide aspirin," I said.

She trotted, literally, into the bedroom and a moment later trotted back and sat a bottle of Excedrin beside my coffee cup.

"I'm going to take a shower," she said.

"Can I watch?"

She shook her head. "You can't even stand up, for god's sake!"

"My breakfast was late. That's why," I said. I opened the bottle and took a couple of the tablets. I downed them with a slug of coffee.

The dog sprawled over the floor, head on paws, and glared at me. I usually establish a fairly good relationship with animals, especially cats. Most animals mind their business and I mind mine as long as they don't mind their business on me. Cats mind their own business, period. Dogs do not; dogs figure everybody's business is their business. Dogs were probably invented by the same masochist who invented mornings.

I thought about talking to the dog. I wondered what I could say to make friends with him. I would have told him he looked great, but that sounded a bit stupid even for me. Anyway, he was ugly and probably knew It. I don't think he would have believed me.

"It's rumored that some dogs may almost be as smart as some cats," I said. "Have you had your IQ checked lately, dog?" He growled and lifted his head.

"I thought not," I said.

I got up to fix myself some more Nescafé Classic instant.

It's true that I had difficulty walking. I bumped into a chair and ricocheted off the counter. But I managed to get some more water boiled.

For the first time, I noticed that my hands were shaking. Some of the water didn't find the cup. Some spilled water still remained on the cabinet from my earlier cup of coffee. I hadn't noticed it until now either.

"You're in pretty piss-poor shape, you know that?" she said from the doorway.

I gave up trying to stir the coffee with a fork and sat down at the table again.

"What happened to my Friday?" I asked.

"Probably a blackout," she said. "Alcoholics get them all the time."

"I'm not an alcoholic."

"Babe, you'll damned well do until one comes along." She prepared herself a cup of tea and sat down across the table from me. Her dog placed his huge head on her knee. She rubbed at his head.

"What else did Dude tell you?"

"He said you looked in bad shape."

"Friday?"

"Yesterday, babe. That's why I decided to come get you."

"I don't remember Friday," I said. "Absolutely nothing."

"From the way you look, babe, you must have had a good time."

She tossed her head. Hair flew like a small storm. I couldn't determine if her hair was angry or not.

She had dressed in black and white jeans that accented her hips and legs and a blouse that hid everything as if a curtain had been drawn above her waist. Jo has a very nice figure, upstairs and downstairs, but it is her face that's strikingly beautiful. Her lips are pouty even when she isn't pouting. Her eyes are huge and you can fall into them and drown even if you know how to swim.

"Or no time at all," I said softly, almost to myself.

"Tell mama all about it. What happened Thursday night?"

"I'm tired of talking about it."

"How could you be tired of talking about it?"

"I had to tell the story several times to the police. Those people don't understand English very well. After that, I think I went out and had a few beers. Some place called the Green Frog."

"Probably told everyone in the bar."

"Well, I may have told one or two people about it."

"Did you close the bar?"

"Strong possibility."

"In other words, you don't remember."

"Then there was this government organization earlier today.

"Now that's pretty heavy!" said Jo. "Why should the government be interested in Sherbert's death?"

I shrugged. "You said something earlier about dope?"

"That's the word on the street. But the federal government wouldn't be interested in something as commonplace as that unless it was an industry-wide investigation."

"Doesn't seem likely," I said. "If they were going to do it, they would have done it years ago. I think the columnist Jack Anderson tried to stir something up in the 1970s and flopped."

I told her about the slaughter at the Busted Bird Cafe. I really was tired of telling the story. I wondered how many times I'd told it.

"Overkill," she said thoughtfully. "Why kill
everyone just to burn Sherbert?"

"Been a lot easier to wait until he came out of the nightclub and shoot him then," I said. "Or bump him off at his house."

"I've been there. It's guarded." She quickly added so I wouldn't get the wrong idea: "A party."

"They could still have knocked him off any place rather than the Busted Bird. You're right: Killing a dozen people just to eliminate Sherbert doesn't make a lot of sense."

There was a long pause in the conversation. I had another cup of coffee before she spoke again. Of course, I drink coffee fairly fast, once it reaches the right temperature--hot, but not scalding.

"You've had entirely too much to drink the past few days," she said softly.

"How much is too much?"

"The question is: Have you drowned Sherbert yet?"

"I hope so. I'm not sure how much more beer my gizzard can take."

"It's your friends I'm concerned about. How much more can they take? Including me."

"A man is entitled to a good, healthy drunk every now and then."

"Healthy!" she scoffed. "You're missing one entire day in your agenda and you think that's healthy?"

"It was probably a lousy day anyway. No big deal. Maybe I would have wanted to miss it even if I hadn't missed it."

"Can you stand up yet?"

"There has never been any doubt about the Hedgeworths being able to stand. Sturdy family genes, I'll have you know. Some can even walk. And a distant cousin
could run. Ran for local dogcatcher one year."

"Go shower," she ordered.

I couldn't think of anything to say or anything to do that I could do, so I went and took a shower. The water was either too cold or too hot and I never got it adjusted right. But I suppose I got, eventually, more or less clean.

After my shower, there was considerable debate about what to do next.

Jo had decided that I couldn't go back to my apartment. That's the trouble with women: You sleep with them a couple of times and they decide they can control your life.

"I need some clean clothes." I was sitting at the table with just a huge towel draped around me; I looked like an escapeé from a toga party.

"I've been in your apartment enough times to know without question that you don't have any clean clothes," she said.

"Cleaner clothes than these, anyway."

"The Mafia probably is watching that place by now," she said.

"They couldn't find that apartment," I insisted. "I'm not in the phone book even under my own name."

"In this town, everyone who's anyone is unlisted. That would not stop the Mafia."

"They wouldn't come after me anyway. I'm small potatoes. The Mafia has outgrown small potatoes. They've got bigger fish to fry."

"The Mafia, Buddy, is big enough to have small people to handle small people. This is the record business, for god's sake. Nobody's that big."

"I'm radio," I said.

"Would you please sober up!"

She trotted off in her Maseratti to get me some clothes. Her dog was left in the yard with instructions to kill if I so much as opened the front door of the bungalow.

While waiting, I turned on the radio to see if I was still on the air. Her sound system is one of those fancy jobs. Digital. So, I had no trouble finding K-Oldies. I wasn't on the air. The team of Rosemarie and Dan had switched me off and gone live.

K-Oldies uses a concept developed by Mitch Michells, né Terrell Metheny, when he was programming WMCA as a New York City Top 40 station in the late 60s. The disc jockeys all do four-hour shifts, six days a week. But several power jocks are always on the air, even on Sunday. I.e., the sound of the station doesn't change. My "tribute" to Sherbert was one of the extremely rare occasions that Dude would have allowed even the slightest variation in the format. He was a stiff taskmaster when it came to radio; it had to be perfect. No excuses.

My head still felt like a bag of rocks. I turned off the radio and opened the front door slightly just to give the dog something to worry about. Why should he have a nice day?

Then I made myself another cup of coffee and had a couple of more Excedrins.

I tried to remember Friday. Not a hell of a lot of clues to go on if you're trying to map out a day that you don't remember. I had shown up at the radio station, evidently. That was news to me. What happened after that?

This morning, or was that yesterday morning, I'd found a flat tire on my pickup. It was my first flat in Los Angeles. Matter of fact, my first flat since a junker I owned as a kid back in Texas. You just don't have flats, ordinarily, on a new pickup. Ford will tell you that. Even if you drive a Chevrolet.

After a while, Jo returned. She handed me a shopping bag.

I held the bag up.

"Saks?"

"Certainly."

"I've never asked you this, Jo, but how does a mere rock'n'roll singer get a house in Beverly Hills, a Maseratti, and money for something like Saks? I can't even afford to walk inside the door at Saks. They charge $17 a minute just to breathe the air."

"Perhaps I'm a crook." She tossed her hair; I could sense that she was a bit peeved at being questioned about her finances. But it was strangely important to me at the moment...maybe because I was suffering from a hangover the size of the moon and couldn't think normal or maybe because I sensed her purchase of a pair of blue jeans and a shirt had more than ordinary significance.

I thought about the possibility for a moment that she was a crook.

"Nope," I said finally. "You aren't that smart."

"I resent that!"

"You're pretty enough, but not smart enough. It would take one hell of a smart crook to steal not only a home up in Beverly Hills, but a Maseratti."

"Perhaps I earned all this."

"Nope to that, too," I said. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me before. Perhaps I wasn't in this kind of mess before. It didn't even matter. You're not a bad singer. At least you sing on key and that's better than most of the girls in rock music today. But you haven't had the kind of hit record that develops astronomical revenues yet."

"Screw you," she said.

"Then screw your pants," I said and handed her the bag back.

"Stupid," she said.

I shrugged. "My old pants will do."

"You old pants smell to high heaven!"

I went into the bathroom and found my trousers. I started to put them on.

She stood in the doorway with the shopping bag. She held it out to me with a toss of her hair.

"My parents are rich. I've had a charge card at Saks since I was 13 years old. I didn't get the car until I graduated from high school. As for this place, I don't know whether it's mine or still in my father's name. I could ask for it. He gives me anything I want. I've always been a spoilt rich kid. I like being a spoilt rich kid. So sue me."

"All I wanted was some honesty," I said. I took the shopping bag, pulled out the Jordache jeans, and put them on. "It's not a sin to be rich. Not as long as you're a fucking star."

She grinned.

"You're a horse's ass. You know that?"

"You've been talking with Dude," I said.

(To be continued)

e-mail  claude@claudehallonline.com

Commentary
by Claude Hall

June 23, 2003

From John Berger, JBARGER@satx.rr.com: "Buzz Long and I starred at KNOW in Austin in 1961-62. Herb Humphries shows up from Midland, a news director (later to go to all-news WINS, KABC, KFWB; the last two as news director). I get tired of law school and ask Herb to find me something that pays more than $100.00 a week. He hooks me up with Arnie Schorr (the last non-rock PD at KHJ). Arnie's father, Herb Schorr just married into some money and he encourages his new wife to back his son and her son (Herb's step-son) in a venture in Harrisburg, PA, which was WFEC. Buzz and I had 60 shares against WSBA in York in 1963 (last of the pre-Beatles era). I went back to Austin that winter and finished law school. Buzz stayed around Harrisburg for a year, got married, and then did a stint for Harry Averill at WEAM in Washington. High-profile, but no money. We probably had very little talent (at least I never claimed it), but we were given the right to play your top 100 chart from Billboard, and the rest is/was history. Air conditioning and lots of chicks calling on the request line. A modern-day cavalier life-style, but no real money until we all went into sales or just skipped that part and went straight to management. One Saturday evening I had dinner with Buzz A. Long, his wife, Linda, and Herb Humphries at John Case's famous restaurant in Longview, Texas. We returned to Herb's house for libations and I noted two Emmys over his mantel. He said, 'Shit, forget about those, and the two Peabodys and the DuPont up there also. The one I most treasure came from the people at Billboard Magazine when they decided what we were doing at 1010-WINS was having more impact on radio in the 1963 than any single disc jockey, so they blew off the DJ of the year award that year and gave it to us. Jimmy Lightfoot said I earned it for Westinghouse, and that I could keep the trophy'. Herb mentioned that news is the key to localism in radio, but that today there are few local newscasts and what few there are, their story counts are woefully slow. Even today, Herb probably could do a thirty-minute newscast about the daily happenings in Gladewater (population 8,345) and have us believe that if the second coming were neigh, he would be there in a swept-back 1960 red Mercury mobile unit to provide coverage. Keep the columns rolling. Come to San Antonio and listen to my little Class A 'Texas Music' station at 103.7 MHz. It's truly your taste in today's music...a throw-back to dripping wet and cool window A/C units and Pearl in a bucket providing the only respite from the sultry Texas heat." 

Lord, John, you had me floored from beginning to end. And Arnie Schorr? Wow! Harry Averill? Wow! 

I would think that radio and entertainment law is quite different from ordinary law. Maybe the lawyers are even of a special breed. One of the guys I knew back in the old days was Gary Smithwick, who had a law firm in the Washington, DC area; I've lost touch with him over the years. Then Billy Pearl, a darn good Top 40 disc jockey, literally put any broadcasting career that he might have had on hold while he went back and earned a law degree. My oldest boy is a lawyer and Tony Richland, a well-known record promotion man in Los Angeles, had a daughter that became a lawyer. L. David Moorhead, né Guy Williams, had a daughter who is a pretty good lawyer in Los Angeles under her married name. Ken Dowe tells me that his daughter Traci is not only a lawyer, as I recall, but some kind of super 007 type. One of the special breed would probably be Rochelle Rabin, an attorney with offices at 300 North Pottstown Pike, Suite 210, Exton, PA 19341 610-363-1290, Rochell640@aol.com, who writes: "By the way, I'm not sure that I ever introduced myself properly, but I wanted to take this opportunity to do so and also do a little networking since you know a lot of people in the industry. I have a law practice in the Philadelphia area. As part of the practice I represent broadcasters including major and medium market air talent (mostly radio but one took the leap to TV), ops and sales managers, concerning their employment agreements and other business and financial matters. I also do entertainment law consulting, and am a contributor to the newly-released bio of the Jefferson Airplane, 'Got A Revolution!' by Jeff Tamarkin, having done legal research concerning the band's lengthy litigation with its former manager, their label, and other notables (see www.gotarevolution.com  for more info). I have been in private practice since 1979, and am a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova Law School. For fun, I occasionally interview oldies and Woodstock-era artists for the oldies format of MJI Programming/Premiere Radio Networks. Anyway, if you run across any air talent who needs representation regarding their contracts, please keep me in mind. I can also represent the employer side of the deal. I have excellent major market references which I can send you upon request." 

Years and years ago, Joey Reynolds was probably out of work and I was probably out of work and Joey wanted me to go with him to interview the former manager of the Jefferson Airplane, a lawyer, who was living in a house on the hills behind Malibu. Joey did his interview on tape and I took some color slides with a miniature Rollei 34mm camera. It was a nice house with a good view of the ocean and probably worth a few million if it's still there and the guy--I can't remember his name--had a stringy beard that I remember as somewhat white, eyes sunk way back in his head, and he looked like death. But he showed us his corral (he liked to take long rides into the hills beyond to communication with the spirits of the Indians, he said) and a marijuana plant growing in his backyard, wild evidently. He said he'd backed the Airplane in those early San Francisco days. And he spoke of getting beaten up by some recording artist. He gave us some copies of records by groups that he said he'd produced recently. I never listened to them. You sort of wonder what even happened to a guy like that. 

Radio has always been more than just radio. Bruce Miller Earle grew up listening to radio back when he was a kid and so did I and the fact that we participated in real radio was as much a matter of luck as desire. Some people don't get lucky like us, but they are truly a part of the game. Charlie J. Brown, cjbrown@norden1.com, says that he "will admit to being one of the hard-core types Bruce Miller Earle mentioned. The ACX list he referred to is an e-mail list made up of people like myself who collect airchecks and talk about radio in general. The topics are mostly related to Top 40-era radio from the late fifties through the early 80s. I have never been in the radio industry. But as a lifelong fan of the medium I remember l reading your columns in Billboard magazine very well. As a teenager in the sixties I would go to the library or visit a news stand every week just to grab the latest Billboard to read your column. It was a wonderful way to keep up on all of radio's hottest people and latest happenings. I would really like to be able to read your work all over again. Is there a book that collects all of your columns in one place? If not I would sure like to see one published. I am sure many others would also enjoy reading your Vox Jox columns again. A few e-mails I have made to BPI have never been answered. In the meantime I love the new web page. Keep up the great work." 

There's another site for airchecks that I would like to commend. It's mentor is Richard Irwin, ricky@reelradio.com. REELRADIO Inc. is a 501(c)(3) organization. The REELRADIO website has been online since February 12, 1996. Richard claims to have the world's first and largest aircheck repository. And the good Lord knows that we should have a place for the past so that it not entirely fades away. One of my most-difficult tasks back around 1980 was to not only trash perhaps two or three thousand airchecks, but virtually 14 years of Billboard magazines. They filled up a two-car garage. Barbara and I were moving. I could not take them with me. The airchecks were those that had been entered in the annual disc jockey and radio station competition. They included the very cream of American radio for several years up until about 1979. As for the copies of Billboard, some featured two and even three stories on the front page that I had researched and written, though usually only one story featured my byline (probably the radio story). But I was also writing record industry stories, talent stories, etc., unbeknownst to most of the people in radio. I will never forget the year that the review board met in the home of George Burns and sweated entries, arguing over which was better and why. Mardi Neirbass was one of the judges that year. One night she was so physically whipped, she broke into tears. But all of us considered it extremely important, those awards, and we stayed with it. And wouldn't it have been great to have kept all of those presentations for posterity? What a pity that they are gone. If you have any great airchecks around and maybe even if they're not very great, may I suggest you contact Richard Irwin? 

As those of you who read last week's Commentary know, I'm of the persuasion that if we don't write the history of radio as we know it, and those last four words have special meaning to you and me, others will do it for us and some of us may end up looking like heroes, but the probability is quite strong that most of us will be ignored. Thus, I was rather pleased to receive the following e-mail from Bob Baker, BBaker1140@aol.com, former deputy metro editor of the Los Angeles Times: "thot you would enjoy this: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f03/montague.html." That's the website that lists a book by the Magnificent Montague, written with Bob Baker. Don Barrett of LARP.com dropped me a note that he'd read the book and "I did a big story on Montague's book last week. It is absolutely terrific." Most of you know that getting a book published by the University of Illinois Press is a highly prestigeous occurrence. For those of you who don't know who Montague is, he is probably one of the greatest radio personalities of our time. Years after he left radio in Los Angeles, he was still scoring high in audience ratings. An amazing man, an amazing life, an amazing book. I hope you will take time to checkout that website above. 

I've got to tell a Magnificent Montague story that isn't in the book. Montague and I and my beautiful bride of more than 40 years, Barbara, decided to do a soul food cookbook. We pitched a few publishers and couldn't get any of them excited, so the project fell by the wayside, but meanwhile we did some research. Montague is not really into soul food. He's more of a Chasen's type, but maybe he'd be insulted if he heard that...let's just say he likes to dine very, very well. But he knew of Ray Jr.'s down in Watts and so we drove down there. I get along just about anywhere and so does Barbara so if anyone was nervous about being in Watts, it was Montague, I assure you. But we walk into this restaurant, which in those days and maybe still only served breakfast, and Montague mentions his name and, I swear, it was like the President of the United States had entered the place, except that everyone liked him. I mean everyone! The owner came out to sit with us over breakfast, the waitresses all stopped by to say hello, even the guy washing dishes in the back came out to meet Montague. Every damned one of them still thought he was on the air, too! It was one of the darnest things I think I ever saw! Montague, in those days, was royalty and, in my mind, still is. 

Just FYI, in addition to the Ron Jacobs book, www.93khj.com, about KHJ and the Johnny Holliday book which you can buy though Amazon.com, John Rook, jhrook@earthlink.net, is coming along pretty good on his book and so is Chuck Dunaway -- www.chuckdunaway.com -- his personal website. Pat O'Day, once program director and then general manager of KJR in Seattle, also has a book printed that you can get info on via patoday@interisland.net. And Jack Gale, too, at jackgale@adelphia.net. Plus Joey Reynolds at G1boney@aol.com. Want to hear something a bit off the wall? I have a book written by Bill Randle about Amish cooking. A lot of people who've, quote, been around the horn, to use an old cliche, will say, "What!" about that one. My copy is autographed. Here's something else that might interest you; I suggested that Kent Burkhart write a book and received this response: "I know I have a lot of history in my memory bank. Maybe I will write it one day, or make it into a novel (using different names for obvious reasons)...cause I know the good and the bad." L. David Moorhead used to laugh and say that he intended to write everything he knew about radio and the people in it and for $10,000, you could have your story taken out before publication. 

From Lee Bayley, Lee.radio@verizon.net: "If you would like, some day I will send you some of the nice e-mails I still get today about the impact KAKC (Tulsa) had on the lives of the people sending them. Still today I am sometimes asked for an autograph when I visit Tulsa. Yeah, I think there are still a lot of people who remember and who care. I am just as pissed as you and others about how our industry has become just a money tool. Remember when it was really cool to be 'the guy on the radio'? Remember how exciting it was to meet your listeners every time you left the station, went to the movies, went shopping or to concerts (which you mceed)? Now the jock's content is so generic they can't even mention 'it's a nice day'. Oh, well...the listener's loss." 

Perry Ury, perry-uryp@excite.com, says: "You are right, Claude--lots of revisionism going on--lots of myths being revisited. Sadly, the outstanding stations that have been literally swallowed up by the large operators have lost their history in transition." 

Dan McCurdy, director of communication, Town & Country Stores, San Angelo, TX, DanM@TCFS.COM: "I enjoyed reading your June 16 article on the mythology of Top 40 Radio and the need to keep the facts straight. I absolutely agree, as a McLendon-ex of the '60's, that any revisionist version of the facts about our common Top 40 experience should be nipped quickly in the bud. I, of course, knew Bill Stewart, but like you, never met Todd Storz. I always heard him get dual credit for innovating the Top 40 radio concept (alongside Gordon), but until your article, was never sure who was REALLY first. Now, I know. A little of my background: after serving a three-year sentence at a radio station in Abilene, TX (while attending college) and sending endless mailed-out air-checks), I got a call from KLIF in June 1963 and was invited to come down to talk to PD Stan Richards. I was ecstatic, since, at the time, KLIF was the 'mecca' for jocks from Atlanta to San Diego, from Houston to Chicago. Stan hired me initially to replace Bill Ennis on the 9-noon slot, but I was pretty green, so I landed on the graveyard shift a couple of months later (using the name Dan Patrick). And there I stayed for about a year until Jack Woods (the original Charlie Brown of the 'Charlie & Harrigan Show') left for Indianapolis. Station manager Charlie Payne decided that the KLIF jocks should be given a shot at playing 'Charlie' before casting around for an out-of-station replacement. For some odd reason, Ron Chapman (Irving Harrigan) and I hit it off on the air, and I became the 'Charlie Brown' replacement in late summer 1964. In September of that year, Chapman and I introduced the Beatles at the Dallas Convention Center. In my mind, I was on top of the WORLD! As I stated above, the in-station competition idea was station manager Charlie Payne's. Chapman probably had a say-so, but I'm sure Gordon and Charlie heard the way we clicked on the air and gave me the slot. Absolutely nothing was said on-air about me replacing Jack, and I've often wondered if Gordon/Charlie/Don Keyes (Nat'l PD for McLendon at the time), simply thought that the listening public was so stupid that they wouldn't notice. Apparently, it made no difference in ratings, since C&H scored an unbelievable 54% total audience share in the fall of '64--unheard of since the D/FW area had around 30 stations at that time. Top AQH shares in Dallas now run 5-6% for the top stations, with everybody else scrapping it out for the leftovers. D/FW now has 60+ stations. At KLIF, we were THE station for Dallas/Ft. Worth, and we loved to strut our stuff. Parades, treasure hunts, school-related sock hops, Jimmy Rabbitt's 'Great Boat Race', Gordon running for U.S. Senator against Ralph Yarborough (and getting beaten in the primaries)--KLIF was KING and Gordon capitalized on it by promoting us as 'America's Most Imitated Radio Station'. As to KLIF, lots of BIG memories--introducing the Beatles (along with Chapman) in September 1964; Gordon's primary race for Senator against Ralph Yarborough in the spring of 1964 (which included a promotional trip to Dallas for Gordon by John Wayne, his son Patrick and Chill Wills); and of course, the saddest memory, the assassination of JFK in November of 1993. If you have read Steve Eberhard's website "The History of KLIF" http://www.historyofklif.com/ you are aware that Jack Ruby came to the station the night before he shot Oswald. He brought us some sandwiches and soft drinks from Phil's delicatessen, and came in the control room with me and visited for about thirty minutes. Several of us have our testimony recorded in The Warren Commission Report. Glenn Duncan, Gary DeLaune (both newsmen), Russ Knight (The Weird Beard) and me. After a 'bummer in the summer' stint at WMEX in Boston and a year-long return to Dallas, again as Dan Patrick, pulling the morning show on KBOX from 1966-67, I wised up and got into advertising. I was hired by the Stanford Agency, the in-house ad agency for 7-Eleven Stores (The Southland Corporation). Having a chance to get into the advertising business was a rare opportunity for me. Having worked for one genius in the form of Gordon McLendon, I was able to work for another one, Bob Stanford, the ad director for 7-Eleven. He was the guy who developed all the funny Slurpee commercials that featured the guy with the funny voice (Frank Harting). As a matter of fact, the only person I ever heard Gordon call a genius was Bob Stanford. And the only person I ever heard Bob call one was Gordon. I hope I haven't bored you spitless with this tome, but once I get rolling in a discussion about Top 40 radio and its early daze, I can pretty well roll on to the horizon. I sincerely appreciate your efforts to 'keep the facts straight' about our industry's beautiful legacy and hope that Mr. Fatherley will relent in his revisionist history efforts." 

Burt Sherwood, Burt Sherwood & Associates Inc., bohica1@comcast.net, "Hi...saw your article today...Art Holt is correct, as always." 

Just for the record, this. There may be a copy of a 1957 issue of a magazine called Television in which Todd Storz is quoted as saying, "I became convinced that people demand their favorites over and over while in the Army during the Second World War." I had that thrown in my face recently to prove a point, i.e., that Top 40 radio evolved in Kansas City instead of at KOWH in Omaha as Bill Stewart and others have told me. Bill Stewart, former national program director for Storz, once showed me that article and laughed about it. Storz, he said, never talked with the press. Thus, the Stewart interview remains the primary source, as well as comments by others supporting Todd Storz, Gordon McLendon, and Bill Stewart. My son John, an attorney in Los Angeles, asked me just recently: "Why are they trying to do this?" in reference to the article in the Kansas City Star. I told him that I did not know. The person who mentioned the Television article suggested that I'm trying to preserve my book or defend it in some way. This is not true, in my opinion. Though I will defend as hard as I can the people in it. I'm much too old and, by the way, too ornery to attempt to preserve anything but the friends that I have made and the friends that I have left. I know many of the personal flaws of these friends. None of us are exactly perfect. Those things are not up for popular discussion. But I tell you this: You smear a friend, living or dead, and you smear me. 

Claude Hall

e-mail  claude@claudehallonline.com