The New York radio market in the late ’60’s and early ’70’s was rich, varied and deep. Toward the end of the decade of love, AM radio was king. Powerhouse WABC-AM New York, featured a potent lineup of jocks with names like Cousin Brucie, Ron Lundy, George Michael, Chuck Leonard, and Dan Ingram. They were the first choice on the dial for a kid riding in his mother’s Chevy on his way to basketball practice.
They were a pure top 40 play. You could hear The Beatles, The Stones, The Everly Brothers, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Bobbie Gentry, Tom Jones, The Temps, The Supremes, big James Brown singles, novelty records of every stripe, Sonny and Cher, and others. It was early integrationist programming driven by the singles buying habits of the young. They held sway over New York ratings for years.
Further to the left of the dial at 6600, WNBC-AM provided a similar brand of programming minus the star wattage of ABC’s jock lineup. Ted Brown, Big Wilson, and a little known, Don Imus played almost the exact same records, but fewer of them. I grew up with a commuting New York City school teacher for a parent, and NBC was game tight with the traffic reports for the Cross Bronx Expressway. The occasional Billy Preston smash would grace their airwaves, but other than that, they held little appeal for a young black kid growing up in Soul City. There was all news and all talk at both WINS-AM and WCBS-AM, talk and AC at WOR, and soft rock at WDJY-AM.
At the dawn of the seventies, I began to spend more time with an older cousin who lived in Do Or Die, and a local neighbor, who was also older, from up the street. Both of them had very progressive taste and exposed me to hot funk and soul hits from that era. The Barkays’ Soul Finger, Scorpio by Dennis Coffey and The Detroit Guitar Band, The Isley Brothers It’s Your Thing, Power by Earth Wind & Fire, and The Stylistics’ Break Up To Make Up, were just a handful of the titles that my mentors had in their 45 collections.
DENNIS COFFEY AND….
SOUL CITY’S ISLEY BROTHERS
This whet my appetite for more of that funky stuff and set me on a journey that has not yet been completed. The next stop? WWRL-AM New York, a prime example of the network of black radio stations that dotted the country and were the primary outlets for black artists in the ’50’s, ’60’s and ’70’s. To my ear it was very different. First off, all the jocks sounded like my older cousins in North Carolina and men at the barber shop. They had southern inflection in their speaking voices and were very down home in their delivery.
The morning man was a cat named Enoch Hawthorne Gregory, “The Dixie Drfiter.” Other spots were held down by Jerry “B” Bledsoe, Hank Spahn, and Gary Byrd. Collectively, they provided the soundtrack for southerners who had migrated north in search of greater opportunity. Their playlist reflected the tastes, humor, struggle, heartbreak, and triumph of a people on the rise. Bobby Womack’s Harry Hippy, Don Covay’s I was Checking Out As She Was Checking In, Luther Ingram’s If Loving You Is Wrong were all first heard by me on WWRL. All classics.
I left the public school system and went into a stint of private schooling in 1970. I was educated with more affluent children. The differences were represented in many ways, but as I recall, one of the most striking was the fact that I was riding more often in foreign cars to basketball practice. Not particularly interesting in and of itself, but I heard FM programming more frequently. The old family Malibu had a standard option AM radio. To know how revolutionary it was to hear FM stereo after years of listening to AM, you’d have to remember the early difference between network television programming and cable.
FM was the home of underground freeform rock stations. You could hear musicians with social consciousness singing songs of protest, and the acid laced rock of the time all blended into one. You could go weeks and never hear the same record twice. Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Santana, Curtis Mayfield, Grace Slick, Clapton, and Joni Mitchell were all core artists. WNEW-FM’s Scott Muni and WPLJ’s Pat St. John pioneered the format. This was pretty much the deal until a game changer came on the scene, “The Chief Rocker” Frankie Crocker.
THE FORMER WKTU PD CARLOS DeJESUS & FRANKIE
Frankie had been a product of the New York radio wars, and had jocked at both WWRL and WMCA. He’d been the PD at RL and felt constrained by what he considered to be the narrow perspective of the station. New York political and media don, Percy Sutton, had control of two stations on the dial, WLIB-AM, a soul directed daytime broadcaster, and WLIB-FM. The latter eventually became WBLS-FM 107.5 on the dial, the call letters where Frankie changed the way people listened to the music played by black artists forever.
to be continued….
insideplaya
Frankie Crocker taught me more about music than anyone. If not for him I wouldn’t know who the Pretenders were, or Annie Lennox, The Police or how dope Queen was. He broke Miss You by the Rolling Stones and gave them a Black audience. Everyday was a music lesson. You never knew what he was going to play day to day except the outro, “Moody’s Mood”. He didn’t operate from a playlist but from feeling and groove. He ran through the clubs regularly and put WHATEVER was hot right on the air the next day. No one does that anymore. He was not just breaking records but educating and breaking movements. First cat to play all the soul music coming out of England. First cat to play Loose Ends, Soul II Soul, Five Star, Junior, Level 42, Heaven 17, and Mica Paris to name a few.
He broke Blondie, Madonna (Dance and Sing anyone?), all Arthur Baker records, Shannon, D Train, The System, Colonel Abrams and Alicia Myers, and Grace Jones.
He made, “Love Is The Message” by MSFB NYC’s unofficial anthem to this day.
He made “Ain’t No Stoppin Us Now” by McFadden and Whitehead EVERYONE’s favorite cookout, wedding, church and graduation song.
He made “Set It Off” by Strafe a club classic that people still play to this day.
He made “Rock The Casbah” by the Clash a hot song in the Black Community.
I remember Friday afternoons in the city when the weather was warm you could hear Frankie coming from every cab, car, UPS truck, or any box that fools had set up while they worked getting pumped up for the weekend activities. If you were at a cookout or in the park, just put on ‘BLS and you were straight. Even the way he would do the station drops was amazing. W……………B……………L…………………………….S!!!!
No one has had a hold of NYC like that since. NO ONE. It’s wack how he’s gone and is never spoken of. Man listen, WBLS in the 70’s and 80’s was the best radio anyone has ever heard. PERIOD. He ran the city then. That is undisputed.
Glad to see you doing this piece. There needs to be a book or movie on this cat.
You ever think about blogging?
playa,
I can’t help but feel happy. What an elegant backdrop to set the stage for the story of a genuine icon. I can’t wait to read the balance. Much love for Frankie a true original, pioneer radio man. I hope my friend Carlos see’s that photo and reads the piece.
ladyriff
It’s an honor to have the perspective of a former BLS MD. Thanks for checking in
CROCKER WAS A GREAT RADIO MAN!
CROCKER WAS A TRENDSETTER!
CROCKER WAS A CELEBRITY!
CROCKER WAS A PERSONALITY!
Crocker educated one about music in an acceptable way.
He sold albums for the artist. He identified hit songs! He hipped you to quality artist. He challenged one’s musical intellect, if you had one!
He trandscended all boundaries, the coasts, international borders. He was a star in a town that starred Nicky Barnes uptown, Bobby Short and Gloria Vanderbilt types in midtown, and Clyde Frazier around town!
From David Mancuso’s loft, to Kool Herc’s Bronx Dodge High School parties, Crocker’s influence set the tone for the music that was played. His influence set the tone for hanging out! He helped define black / urban / dance music.
Crocker picked the record company’s follow up single. He breathed life into albums that layed dormant.
Ironically, he liked Frank Sinatra, but not Frankie Beverly. He wasn’t to fond of the BarKays, Confuncion or early Cameo either. All bands that sold gold plus out of their Atlanta branches alone.
He was quick on disco, but a little slow on the rap, though he and several of his early contemporaries were the precursor to rap.
He was cool without going to the Bronx or Brooklyn! Good, bad or indifferent, he created “urban contemporary.”
His airplay or adds guaranteed record company revenue.
Independent companies with good records, Juggy, Joey, Charles, or Rocky could thrive. Promo reps only needed to have him play their records to get their add sheets filled up with other adds from stations that fell in line cause Crocker played their record.
Several reps really didn’t do promotion. They spent their time entertaining Crocker. Picking up his tabs, knowing when he was leaving town, or returning, hoping to be the one selected to pick him up from the airport, check on his dog, get that chicken!
It’s amazing that he could remain as passionate about music as he did after battling federal prosecutors from the southern district court, KTU playing Lee Abrahms’ shortened playlist (“Ring My Bell” the every other record), and Barry Mayo and the Tony’s with their research and spreadsheets.
Inner City may have saved some dough by cutting their ties with Crocker, but they deleted an icon, though his way of doing things was probably at its end, over, the way Don Corleone’s was, as stated by his successor, son Michael.
But even still, with satellite, comedians, recording artist, cross dressers, rap DJ’s, authors, motivational speakers and gossipers on the air, since Crockers been gone, the radio hasn’t really been on!
PS. You forgot to mention. “Eddie O’Jay,” Soul At Sunrise.
I was never a big fan of WLIB’s programming, so I may have never fully appreciated the great, “Eddie O’Jay”. Mornings were reserved for “The Dixie Drifter” and ultimately, finding out what the color of the day was with Ken “Spider” Web.
Frankie Beverly, Cameo, Funkadelic, Parliment, and many solid funk outfits got the fuzzy end of the lollipop from the “Wood” because he was interested in portraying the World’s Best Looking Sound as glamorous and upscale. The programming was an extension of his own persona, and served his needs. Frankie carefully crafted an image of being the coolest cat about town, and the music reflected that. Personally, I didn’t mind a little Sarah Vaughn mixed in with my James Brown.
The Crocker relationship with rap is a little more complicated than you describe. I can remember hearing, Kurtis Blow’s The Breaks, Crash Crew’s On The Radio, Run/DMC’s Sucker MCs, and The Message by Flash and ‘em, all on BLS. His decision to bring “Super Rocking Mr. Magic” and DJ Marly Marl to the BLS airwaves was radical, and briefly transformed BLS into the station with the juice. He never quite embraced the music to the extent that 98.7 KISS-FM did, but he played most of the hits
As it has been noted elsewhere, Frankie Crocker was a musical education unto himself. What he played on the radio represented the cross-section of a culturally diverse, hip New York. He played music that could not be heard anywhere else on the dial. Jeff Sledge is right — Frankie made it cool to like a lot of white acts and broke a lot of artists. He also, as I recall, played major salsa hits, jazz, and gospel as well. He WAS the king of New York, and as I learned from the promotion people I was to meet later, he knew it. It is a sad reality that radio can no longer support the type of programming wiz that Crocker was. I wonder what he would make of the current media landscape.
Looking forward to the next installment …
Janine,
The issue is not whether Jeff was right or wrong, the issue is that the focus of the piece was what Frankie did with BLS in advance of the period that he (Jeff) described. Crocker undoubtedly had the juice to break crossover, new wave and dance based artists later, but what went into building that clout was a very different direction. This I know from first hand experience as well as having promoted a number of records to the station myself, having relationships with many former staff members and spoken with Crocker personally.
insideplaya
….But for Frankie Crocker… I would be a “different” person. Frankie enriched my life from the first day I heard his voice on WMCA! …. Later, Frankie an I became aquainted….and I was even allowed to wish him Happy Birthday on the air over WBLS 107.5 fm. Visiting Frankie at BLS on his Birthday with “Young and Comapany” was a Highlight in my Life and career in “The Biz” … also, to be sitting in Frankie’s Private Studio @ BLS… was Sureal…to say the least. …… RIP “big brother”. dj billie prest
WHAT?! Frankie Crocker was the “man with the plan”! Although it was a New York station, WBLS had a vice grip on Southwestern Connecticut where I listened to it from. You went to sleep with WBLS, you woke up with WBLS. If you worked the “swing shift” like I did, on your dinner break you went out to your car and listened to WBLS and after your shift was over, you had it on in your car while on your way to the club! You could tell if someone in another car was listening to WBLS, even if they had their windows rolled up, just by the way they were rockin’ their heads! Frankie Crocker and WBLS introduced me to Miles Davis, John Tropea, Joao Gilberto, Bobby Caldwell (Surprise! Surprise!) and countless others. It was good that other radio stations played the hit making artists of color(s) but WBLS schooled me on a whole universe of artists of color(s).
As for Eddie O’Jay and his “Soul at Sunrise”, he and his show also schooled me on artists of color(s) I might not otherwise have heard unless they were Top 10 hitmakers. The Politicians, Ralphi Pagan, Ruby Andrews, Dee Dee Warwick, Helena Ferguson, Cannonball Adderly, Dyke and The Blazers (whom my mother refused to let me play in the house, something she didn’t like about the word “funky”), Linda Jones, Glass House, Cissy Houston, The Soul Children, King Curtis…just to name a few (wink, wink). I’m laughing now thinking of how many times my teenybopper friends and I were late for class because Eddie O’Jay played one more song we just had to hear!
I thank God for Frankie Crocker (as well as Vaughn Harper and Lamar Renee), WBLS, and Eddie O’Jay and for the experiences, lessons and memories they all provided and continue to provide to this day.
Thanx for your comment.
insideplaya
Thank you for posting it.
It is indeed a pleasure to read about all these voices from my childhood again. Eddie O Jay and the “Dixie Drifter were served with my oatmeal on many a school morning, and Frankie Crocker rocked me to sleep with Sly and the Family Stone’s “Sex Machine” on WMCA just about every night.
Thanks for putting this history out there.
My pleasure.