Revised! KHJ: Inside Boss Radio for $79 (plus $10 S&H) with FREE "Tina Delgado Is Alive!" button with each copy of this once-secret "Drake" Format textbook devised by Jacobs for KHJ.  (click here to send an e-mail to Ron Jacobs and he'll send you info by reply e-mail) ron@ronjacobsonline.com  KHJ RADIO BOSS ANGELES, 1965 Commemorative 40th Anniversary Streetscape SOLD OUT! Thanks to all of you for remembering. e-mail Ron ron@ronjacobsonline.com

Previous Articles Remembering Stan Wilson (May 2005) I was born and raised in Honolulu. Turned out that I had three heroes named Stan. First was the St. Louis Cardinals’ future Hall Of Famer Stan Musial. In the 1950s baseball games broadcast on radio here were “recreated.” In third grade I heard the 1946 World Series live, via crackling shortwave. The Cards beat the Boston Red Sox in the seventh game. But I never got to see Stan play.  In high school I was a radio reporter for teenage shows on KGMB and KIKI. “John & Marsha” by Stan Freberg was the funniest, and most licentious, hit record of 1954. (click here to continue reading)  British Boss Jock Tommy Vance (1941 - 2005) (May 2005) Tommy Vance did a fine job of adapting to both an unfamiliar environment and a new profession. Vance revealed when and why he decided to be a Top 40 deejay in the chapter he contributed to my book KHJ: Inside Boss Radio. It was the early-1960s. Vance first heard American rock 'n roll radio while washing dishes aboard a UK-registered “rust bucket,” a freighter docked in New York City ... (click here to continue reading) The Great Elvis Hoax (Published in HONOLULU Magazine, 1989) Las Vegas, March 1989. Tom Diskin sat down beside me and reminisced about Elvis Presley's first sensational visit to Hawaii in 1957 ."Do you know how we came to play Honolulu in the first place?" he asked I had never thought about why. It was such a transcendent big deal that it just happened, on the earth-shaking scale of the volcano erupting on the Big Island. (click here to continue reading) Aloha, Marv Howard June 30, 2004 To: Bill Mouzis From: Ron Jacobs Dear Bill, Well, another Boss brother, Marv Howard, has gone on up beyond the highest frequencies. He's definitely, as they say, "In a better place." I met Marv in San Bernardino, in the early KMEN days. Bill Watson was the first California air personality-programmer to sign up with our unknown Hawaii group. In 1962 we acquired KITO, our first mainland station. (click here to continue reading) All Night On The Ala Wai March 22, 2005 During one summer on a kids’ expedition I toured the grand studios of Hawaii’s oldest station, KGU. The walls of this NBC affiliate were covered with lauhala matting. The dried, woven grass was attractive in a Polynesian way and served an acoustic purpose.  KGMB's modern facilities, appropriately shipshape for a CBS outlet, and the small but tidy KIKI broadcast booths were familiar to me from my experience doing teenage shows. But I wasn't ready for how bedraggled KHON had become by 1955. (click here to continue reading) Ron Jacobs remembers the late Robert W. Morgan May 24, 2002 Near the end, RWM was frustrated by not being able to communicate via computer or with his voice. He got his biggest kicks listening to that "Mega" station, which is apparently roughing up KRTH-FM. And good luck to THEM, now without Morgan and Steele, their former is station exposed as a combination juke box/slot machine, running re-cycled KHJ stuff.  (click here to continue reading) The Poi Boys had a symbiotic relationship February 8, 2004 Every few years, I'd ask Dave Donnelly if he knew how many words he'd written for his Star-Bulletin column since starting it in 1968. Well, over the years the two of us would either delve into, or argue about, virtually any kind of statistic. But Donnelly never wanted to pursue the answer to that one. I figured it must be some sort of superstition about numbers and streaks like ballplayers have, and always dropped the subject. (click here to continue reading) MEMO To: Randy Michaels From: Ron Jacobs July 22, 2002 I’m not one to kick a person when he’s down, but since you proved to me during our exchange of phone calls in May 2001, you are definitely not a person —and on behalf of everyone in radio without the ability or vocabulary to do so—here’s a Proclamation just for you, turkey.  (click here to continue reading) May 2005 (click here to continue reading)

Aloha, Marv Howard

June 30, 2004

To: Bill Mouzis
From: Ron Jacobs 

Dear Bill,

Well, another Boss brother, Marv Howard, has gone on up beyond the highest frequencies. He's definitely, as they say, "In a better place."

I met Marv in San Bernardino, in the early KMEN days. Bill Watson was the first California air personality-programmer to sign up with our unknown Hawaii group. In 1962 we acquired KITO, our first mainland station. When first I saw the small building out in that cow pasture on Baseline it began to sink in that I had not made it to Hollywood. At the first heavy rain I sank in literally. The dirt road to the station from the highway turned to mud. With regularity.

We changed KITO to KMEN. Our experience with pronounceable call letters was a big success in Honolulu. (That idea was "borrowed" from WINS-New York, whose killer slogan was “1010 wins New York.”)

Four years earlier I visited L.A. for the first time. My mission: Spend the weekend cruisin' Hollywood in a rented '57 Chevy listening to Chuck Blore's incredible KFWB. The first time I heard Cleve Herman do the "Channel 98 News," I was shocked. Wow, news could be both informative and exciting. Herman's delivery (and voice) within KFWB's news format totally blew me away. Nothing like that back in our little grass radio shack in Hawaii!

When Watson was named P. D. of KMEN he spoke of a close friend and fellow native Angeleno. His air name was Mark Ford. Back then Marv was a "groovy cat" with great pipes. I thought of him as a jock; Watson made certain that I knew Marv had the potential to be an excellent newsman. When Marv joined KMEN he was everything Watson said about him. After I split from Berdoo and headed for Fresno, Watson kept me current on the new Southern California radio people I'd met, including Marv.

Bill, your email bearing the sad news about another of our fallen comrades got me thinking about the entire KHJ crew. I came to this conclusion: Marv Howard was J. Paul Huddleston with a sense of humor.

I think both guys would take that as a compliment. Damn, what fabulous newsmen those two were. When I arrived in the Inland Empire in ‘62 Huddleston was at KFXM, our “target.” I felt that he was probably the best thing on that station.

Unfortunately, the item you sent about Marv contains a major error. It states, "When "Boss Radio" was launched everyone was fired." So very incorrect. You were there in April 1965, Bill. You know as well as anyone what really happened.

Bill Drake and I felt there was an opportunity to take the town by storm with our "radical" ideas. But we couldn't believe our good fortune when we found that KHJ possessed the most professional news staff we'd ever encountered. Same deal with the veteran engineering crew

True, we knew that the air talent would not fit the Boss format. They’d been doing a hodge-podge of MOR music and unfocused talk. (I'll never forget your telling me about having to schlep gear to Beverly Hills every morning to produce Steve Allen's show from his house. Nowadays those deals aren't considered "remote." Anyone can go live from anywhere aided by all manner of high-tech gear.)

Drake and I planned all along to present the most credible and professional news ever heard on a Top 40 station. I guess the reasons are obvious now. Back then, that concept was as "crazy" as airing news at 20 minutes past and before the hour.

Already at KHJ was Art Kevin, as good as any news director I've worked with (and that includes some great ones: Brad Messer, Tom Rounds, Steven Bishop, Jim Lawrence, to name a few.) Kevin had been with the United Press. His experience as a "wire man" guaranteed that KHJ news stories would be verified, rewritten and include as many local actualities as possible. At 5515 Melrose I found the biggest newsroom I'd ever seen, before or since. Complete with clocks on the wall showing the time in major cities around the world, it was like classic radio stations newsrooms as portrayed in the movies or TV.

Besides Kevin, the on-air news crew included J. Paul Huddleston himself, Bob Brown, Lyle Kilgore, Andy West and other major market pros. None of them were fired, They were encouraged to do the news better than ever. An intern who recently joined KHJ News, Roger Aldi, worked his way up to become a fine editor and field reporter during my time there.

An other surprise "bonus" that Drake and I encountered was the engineering staff, headed by The Chief, Ed Dela Pena and the union shop steward, a guy named Bill Mouzis. Most of these men, like yourself, had been in major league radio for years. They'd seen people and formats come and go for years while KHJ attempted to regain its stature as one of L.A.’s original, premier radio stations.

I've always said, the engineers were the unsung heroes of Boss Radio. Today's jocks can't begin to imagine what it's like to rely on another person to run the board and put it all together. The Robert W. Morgan show was airtight because of Morgan AND Walt "Fail Safe" Radtke. You, and later Ken Orchard, had the privilege of reading The Real Don Steele’s wildly creative mind, anticipating his every move for three electric, never duplicated hours.

(Ken once told me that there was ZERO dead air during my time at KHJ! If that isn't amazing, I don't know what is! When a jock transitioned to news, it was a coordinated effort by THREE super-pros, all on the same page. And we all did it with analog equipment, man.)

I was recently thumbing through RKO's license application for KHJ in 1968. That was back in the day when the FCC was for real. Listed under "Employees, Programming," was "72". Not only did Betty Breneman, KHJ's Music Director for many years remain with us, I would guess that only the handful of jocks let go comprised the turnover when we arrived on the scene. Of course, Bill, you know all about the rumors, myths and complete b.s. that people actually believed and circulated about KHJ over the years.

When corporate RKO became believers in "Boss Radio"---about the time KHJ’s spot rate had rocketed from 15 to 50 dollars---Kevin and I began to beef up the news department. We acquired three new Mercury Cougars, painted them blue and white, plastered on them with "KHJ 20/20 News" logos and really got rolling, literally.

As you also know, Drake and I had a thing about hiring people we'd either worked with or competed against. We respected the best of the latter because they fought so hard when they were on the other side.

Thus Jim Mitchell, who was the only person with me at KPOI, KMEN, KMAK and KHJ, joined Boss Radio as news director about a year into it. This freed up Kevin to handle special assignments. (Mitchell became “Jim Lawrence” because "Johnny Mitchell" was already a KHJ Boss Jock)

KHJ was probably the only local radio station with a reporter in New Orleans for a month covering "The Garrison Investigation." That’s when it appeared we’d learn who REALLY killed President Kennedy. Kevin was in New Orleans because District Attorney Garrison invited him to come, guaranteeing Kevin total access to that bizarre affair.

When the first part-time jock slot opened up it was the swing shift, which had been handled by Donn Tyler for the first weeks of Boss Radio We brought in Frank Terry, an original KMAK-Fresno staff member

And when a weekend news gig became available, Marv Howard was our first and only choice. He effortlessly fit in with the best Top 40 news department ever, in my biased opinion. Marv remained at KHJ for eight years after I left in 1969.

Everything from the Watts Riots to the murder of Bobby Kennedy were local stories for KHJ News. Marv’s work during the RFK vigil was outstanding. The Southern California News Directors’ Association regularly presented awards of excellence to both the KHJ news department and individuals.

I hooked up with Marv and Watson several times until I left Southern California in 1976. I'll always remember Marv Howard as a nice, nice man who was also studiously professional in all that he did in radio.

------------------------
Bill Mouzis began his career at KHJ in 1951. He later worked with Marv Howard and Robert W. Morgan from in the 1980s. When Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs arrived at KHJ in 1965 they immediately assigned Mouzis to handle all production for "Boss Radio." Recently, in answering a listener's question about KHJ's monumental "History of Rock & Roll, "Mouzis emailed: "I will be 82 years old in October and I remember these things as though they happened yesterday. I have been blessed with a pretty good memory."

Jacobs insists that, "The only authentic version of the "History" is the 48-hour version that aired on KHJ-Los Angles starting at noon, February 21, 1969, We did send a first draft if the text on to the other RKO stations but never wrote down the dozens of goodies that we added during our production. The KHJ version contains every word in Pete Johnson's groundbreaking script. Morgan, Mouzis, Johnson and the rest of the crew worked on that baby for months. It's the only rendition that represents what we were striving for."

Further information about Howard, Mouzis and Morgan and the original "History of Rock & Roll" can be found in the latest edition of KHJ: Inside Boss Radio