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Here I am, photographed so incriminatingly as I am basking in the glow of a desk lamp. Writing and producing this website was not for glory, and anybody who attempts to make money from writing a history of one radio station surely will starve to death. My purpose in writing all this grew out of an obligation I felt back when I began researching the subject of radio programming to seek the truth and to report what I found. I’ve done that here even though doing so may have pissed off some people. What matters most to me is that you have access to this information that otherwise is unavailable anywhere else.

Why Did Woody Goulart
Write About Boss Radio?

When KHJ was on its way to becoming the number one radio station in Los Angeles, I lived 200 miles north in San Luis Obispo where--believe it or not--the hottest thing on radio at that time was a country music show hosted by “Mac the Scotch Hillbilly.” In 1970 I became news director and eventually station manager at KCPR-FM, the college radio station licensed by Cal Poly State University. Many of us in college radio listened to airchecks of 93/KHJ and we would fantasize that someday we would get to work in what 93/KHJ called “Boss Angeles.”

We felt a strong lure to move to the sprawling metropolitan area of Southern California, not only because Los Angeles is the number two radio market in the United States. The lifestyle of Los Angeles--swimming pools, movie stars--were certainly exaggerated and satirized by television shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, but the City of Angeles was an intense magnet nonetheless for small-town boys and other dreamers, then as now.

Getting a chance to work in Los Angeles radio happened for me without a warning. I was one of several college radio boys who would dream of someday working in Los Angeles radio. But, few of us thought it would actually happen since it seemed like an impossible dream. We felt stuck in a small radio market hundreds of miles away. We may as well have lived on another planet.

We could not listen to 93/KHJ where we lived because the AM signal did not travel very far beyond the Los Angeles basin. Late at night we would often tune in KRLA, however, since it had a much stronger signal that bounced its way to us far, far away.

Listening to tape recordings and late-night signals that bounced off the sky was how we familiarized ourselves with LA radio. Of course, we read Claude Hall’s column in Billboard magazine, so we knew of the legendary radio pioneers, Bill Drake and Ron Jacobs. We hero-worshipped these men and others--like air personalities Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele--that we viewed as very uniquely talented. There was also that "other Don" on the radio that we couldn't resist--Don Imus.

Preparation for Real-World Careers

At KCPR-FM in San Luis Obispo, we came to understand the reality that very few people would actually end up working in the Los Angeles radio market. What KCPR-FM did for us, however, was give us the chance to develop our skills and talents on the air. When I was involved at KCPR-FM, the music programming on the station, and how the station sounded across seven days a week, deliberately emulated successful commercial radio stations. College radio for us in the early 1970s at KCPR-FM was the exact opposite of free form radio, where the person on the air has the freedom to play or say whatever he or she wants. Free form programming on FM--particularly college radio stations--was very common in those days, and young people in their college years tend to measure the value of their life in terms of freedoms.

If they mature emotionally, however, young people will learn how short-sighted is their preference for freedom to do whatever they want on the air on a radio station. Without careful guidance from professionals who have worked in the real-world of broadcasting, a college radio experience can become nothing more than a time of escape and play for young people, who never intend to pursue professional careers in radio. That's fine if you're a young person and you want escape and time to play freely on the air. But, it can largely be a waste of time, money, and state-owned facilities.

If you're smart and worth anything professionally in communications, you should be able to sharpen your skills and talents in college, graduate, and then end up with a professional career in a top twenty media market. That's solid proof of your skills and talents. Even if you don't remain in the broadcasting field, ending up with a professional career in a top twenty media market speaks volumes about what you've got to give. In the early 1970s, KCPR-FM was a proving ground where some of us deliberately emulated real-world, commercially successful strategies and techniques for how a station should sound. Doing so prepared us for careers in larger radio and television markets outside of San Luis Obispo. I wonder whether college radio participants today are being given a proper real-world context and appropriate audience adaptation mindset to prepare them for major market careers in radio or television broadcasting after they graduate.

Apparently, what the Cal Poly Journalism Department and KCPR-FM trained us to do can pay off professionally. Without warning, one of my college radio friends from Cal Poly escaped the confines of San Luis Obispo and made it to the neon fun jungle that is Los Angeles. His LA radio name was “Hurricane Hines” and he opened the door for me to work at K100-FM, also known as K100.

Conflicts Resolved

I have attempted to present definitive information built upon standard journalistic principles of honest reporting, proper attribution of sources and writing without any axe to grind. When you spend time with the material here at this website, I hope you will have an enjoyable visit. And I promise you a clear and unbiased understanding of people, events and radio programming trends that began some 40 years ago in California.

But, there were conflicts with which I had to deal while making this site. When I began my research into radio programming, I was young and inexperienced in dealing with show business people. Although I was 25 years old and lived 700 miles north of Los Angeles in Eureka, California, I convinced Bill Drake, Gene Chenault, Ron Jacobs, Bill Gavin, Claude Hall and others to participate in face-to-face interviews with me for the record out of sheer determination and dedication.

In order to analyze the radio programming endeavors started by Drake and Chenault, I conducted primary research because in the mid-1970s there was no in-depth information on this subject. Trade magazines of that era--most notably Claude Hall’s Billboard magazine column--covered Boss Radio, Bill Drake, Ron Jacobs and others. Periodicals such as Time and Newsweek had also run stories on Boss Radio and Bill Drake. But, none of these sources provided information of much length or depth.

I travelled by air at my own expense from where I lived at the time in Eureka to San Francisco to interview Bill Gavin; to Los Angeles to interview Bill Drake, Gene Chenault, Claude Hall and others; and the greatest distance, to San Diego to interview Ron Jacobs. A few months later in 1976, I incorporated information and quotations from the interviews into my masters thesis (now available online) which was published at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California in fullfillment of the legal requirements for my master’s degree in communications.

Billboard magazine radio columnist Claude Hall wrote This business of radio programming : a comprehensive look at modern programming techniques used throughout the radio world. Claude Hall’s book is an industry insider’s perspective on the radio and music business which came out the year after I completed my primary research into the Drake-Chenault radio programming efforts and my masters thesis. Published by Billboard Publications, New York, 1977, you may be able to find it at a large library using the Library of Congress call number: PN 1991.75 .H3.

In contrast, my primary research covered a broader range of topics and people and provided me the foundation upon which to write analysis and evaluation of the efforts of Bill Drake, Ron Jacobs, and others associated with Boss Radio at KHJ in Los Angeles, later with the RKO Radio chain of radio stations, and finally with K100 in the early 1970s.

Sharing with a Wider Audience

As you know, it is quite common for people who write a master’s thesis or a doctoral dissertation for a graduate degree to later publish their work in other forms to share their findings with a wider audience. That’s exactly what I did. That's what this site is all about. I have a unique perspective because I was on the scene and I witnessed with my own eyes what happened in Los Angeles in the 1970s with the programming efforts of Bill Drake and Gene Chenault. Nowhere else will find the information that I have gathered together here for you all on one webiste.

In 1979 I earned my Ph.D. in Communications from Indiana University and taught communications at universities in Kentucky and Connecticut.  Then, I had a career in the cable television programming and management in Massachusetts and Arizona.  Since 1995, I have been working in the Washington, DC area in editorial management. In 1996, I launched a website about Boss Radio, then named the “Boss Radio Information Site.” All of my research (interviews, letters and so forth) plus the conclusions I drew, and the typewritten text contained in my master’s thesis are my intellectual property and I have owned the rights to that material since I created the work.

None of the participants who spoke with me in face-to-face interviews put any restrictions whatsoever on the use of their names or what they said to me for publication. Of course, nobody in 1975 could have envisioned the important changes in technology there would be as the 20th century ended, so nobody knew the Internet would be available as a way to share knowledge. Just as others before me chose to later publish their work in other forms, I chose to use the Internet to share my work. You can benefit from my knowledge by learning all you can from what I have to offer you at this very special website.

Aftermath

Crucial to the success of Boss Radio was Ron Jacobs, whom I interviewed in 1975 in San Diego. Ron Jacobs was crucial, also, to the success of this Web site. I started regular electronic mail communications with Ron Jacobs after he had read the first version of this site in 1996 called the “Boss Radio Information Site.”

Ron Jacobs disliked what he saw. And, as an industry insider who never hid his true feelings, he went public, letting Southern California know how much he disliked my website.

His negative comments appeared in a newspaper, The Orange Country Register, published in Santa Ana, California on September 1, 1996. Ron Jacobs told the newspaper his views, which were published like this:

"I wrote him [Woody Goulart] that he had no right to print material from an interview granted from a 26-year-old discussion [1975] intended only for an academic paper, that his ‘report’ was superficial, and that he had no direct knowledge of what happened at KHJ during the important years (in my opinion, from 1965-1070; I was there from the start in May 1965 through mid-1969), and his work with Drake in later years did not qualify him in any way as knowledgeable about the subject of KHJ."

Ron Jacobs was claiming that I was not qualified to write history. He went on to say this in the newspaper:

"It’s nice that someone remembers KHJ, however, incorrect and revisionist facts serve no purpose."

Of course, Ron Jacobs was wrong about my qualifications to write history. At the heart of Ron Jacobs’ displeasure with me was not that I was unqualified. Ron Jacobs was displeased that, although my website reminded people about KHJ, it was written by an outsider, whom he felt should not have taken on the subject matter.

But, there was also the issue of how I chose to approach the subject--with objectivity and without prejudice. As the radio industry trade press had done during from the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, my website referred to terms like “the Drake sound” to describe the radio programming on KHJ, other RKO Radio stations, and K100. The reality is that terms like “the Jacobs sound” were never used to describe Boss Radio even though it is arguable that without Ron Jacobs, there never would have been Boss Radio.

Given the nature of publicity, it was no surprise to me that one purpose served by the Ron Jacobs commentary in The Orange County Register in 1996 was to increase the number of visitors to my site. The attention Ron Jacobs drew to my original Boss Radio site encouraged me to expand what I had electronically published into a more detailed website. Of course, I never had any personal concern about what Ron Jacobs thought of Bill Drake, nor whether the two men remained best of friends after Jacobs left KHJ, but I recognized that I had touched a nerve.

I rewrote the 1996 website and within a few months, I completed the second version. Even though I had rattled Ron Jacobs with the first version of my website, I was surprised when Ron Jacobs emailed me to say how "improved" he thought the second version was compared to the first. I considered this high praise from someone who does not readily offer compliments to the unworthy.

Collaboration

I ultimately convinced Ron Jacobs to collaborate with me on revising my Boss Radio website to include his views and comments about Boss Radio from the perspective as its creator looking back some thirty years to review what it all meant. That led to what turned out to be the third version, which was published online in 1997. Evidently, I must have “proved myself” to Ron Jacobs as a writer of history. Although I really did not care about gaining the approval of Ron Jacobs, or anyone else, I was pleased that, together with Ron Jacobs, I was able to craft an accurate historical perspective on radio programming for Internet users to read.

I use the word “collaborate” to describe how Ron Jacobs agreed to interact with me through electronic mail, through a lengthy 1997 telephone interview conducted by this writer and recorded on audio tape, through the editing of the typewritten transcript of the 1997 recorded telephone interview, and through numerous suggestions which Ron Jacobs gave this writer for rewrites, edits, and otherwise changing the content of the Boss Radio website. I was financially responsible for the approximately 60 minute long-distance phone call to Hawaii from the Washington, DC area to conduct that 1997 interview.

Throughout the efforts to complete the third version, Ron Jacobs provided much inspiration for me, and helped me discover a larger purpose of BossRadioForever.com--a way for a writer of radio history like me to publish the rarely-known truths about Boss Radio KHJ once and for all for others to read and remember. The fourth version, published online in early 1998, would not have been possible without his insights and candid comments.

Because Ron Jacobs is not someone who has granted a lot of access to reporters or writers, I felt a strong responsibility to report what he told me without filtering it or spinning it. I believe I succeeded in doing exactly that. But, you can judge for yourself.

I knew at the time Ron Jacobs and I worked together on this project that it was because of me and because of my website he was remembering for the record many of key events that led to Boss Radio and the success of the RKO Radio chain starting in Los Angeles with KHJ in the mid-1960s. And I did not take that responsibility lightly. To tell you the truth, I found Ron Jacobs to be a genius. That’s my honest opinion.

Ron Jacobs granted me permission to reprint some bylined material of his that had been published at the 25th anniversary of Boss Radio. He made certain that I received specific text to use that I otherwise would never had any way to acquire, and he told me how to properly attribute copyright ownership to him. I followed his instructions, learning what I could from him. And all of this led to what turned out to be the third version, which was published online in 1997. I made further refinements and additions to my website in 1998 following the suggestions of Ron Jacobs that I received by email from him.

I brought the right combination of Internet savvy, timing, and the contacts together to examine Boss Radio with objectivity. Ron Jacobs claimed that my being an outsider was a weakness, but I think that it turned out to be my strength. I could write about Boss Radio accurately because I had been close enough to the key players to convince them to talk to me about what happened, but not so close that I would tell a subjective story that I filtered through my loyalties or my friendships.

My interaction and collaboration with Ron Jacobs was completed in 1999. The product of our work together has now been published online for several years, and I stand by the accuracy of what I have written and reported here. I believe that the objectivity, accuracy, multiple perspectives from a variety of different people, and spirit of honesty at this website speak for themselves.

Into the 21st Century

I have updated this site with additional material through 2007. But, while I plan to keep this site online as a resource, as of 2008, I have stopped adding material or changing the site. I am committed to keeping BossRadioForever.com available as an online resource for as long as I can.

Here is a post script regarding Don Imus: I personally was saddened about what happened to Imus [fired April 12, 2007 due to remarks he made on the air about the Rutgers women's basketball team]. I really respected Imus for his most unique on-air personality and loved listening to tapes of his radio show. Over the decades since the 1970s when I first started listened to Imus on tape, he seemed to become an explosion just waiting to happen. Year after year, and decade after decade, the possibility that Imus would explode on the air seemed imminent. That's my opinion. Others disagree with me. I, for one, hope that Imus comes back somehow, somewhere. Updated in December 2007: Imus returned to radio on December 3, 2007 in New York City on 77 WABC with a cable simulcast on RFD-TV.                                       
                                                                                                           --Woody Goulart

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You can contact the author if you modify this text to make it a working email address:
 wg (at) woodygoulart (dot) com or visit woodygoulart.com.

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