OKAY, OKAY, I WROTE THE BOOK
We recorded the first Color Radio
music package three days before the January 1 kick off. I’m sitting here trying
to find words to communicate what a thrill ride I was on. There’s no way.
Sitting in that control room listening to that huge orchestra giving birth to
the sound of Color Radio I felt that Leonard Bernstein himself would have
applauded almost as wildly as I was doing ... of course he may not have been
kicking his feet like a little boy and squealing ... “OH MY GOD IT'S GREAT!” I
had never heard anything like it except in my secret soul and the real thing was
even better.
The orchestra was still rehearsing the final track they would do that day when
Johnny Mann walked in with Gloria Wood, all four octaves of her. Johnny is the
most enthusiastic, passionately positive human being I had ever seen. When he
heard the tracks he threw his fist toward the ceiling shouting “UNBELIEVABLE!”
And Gloria started singing along, no words, just ‘riffs.’ Here again, I had
never heard anything even close to what she was doing so effortlessly ... and
beautifully. My heart was almost pounding apart. If this wasn’t Heaven, it sure
was the next best thing. Then ... new lows ... the lowest and probably the most
beautiful speaking voice I had, or have, ever heard. Thurl Ravenscroft, a person
whose voice (If you’ve been alive in the US during the last half of the last
century) was unavoidable. “Nice to know you Chuck.” Wow, till that moment I had
always thought that Chuck was kind of an ordinary, even unattractive sound. This
was the first time I thought it was songlike. Then came Bill Cole, Sue Allen and
Bill Lee. I didn’t know it at that moment but at that moment I was surrounded by
the six finest voices in the business ... actually counting all the glories of
Gloria we probably had about ten.
With the Johnny Mann Singers doing what only they could do, that first session
could not have been sweeter. And with Gloria Wood using every one of her octaves
to add unexpected magic to every single song, I began to envision an overall
station sound WAY beyond anything I’d ever heard, beyond what anyone had ever
heard as far as I know. This was station information as entertainment. Real
entertainment created specifically to tell people how wonderful we were and to
convince them that what we were there to give to them was totally unique and
completely phenomenal. Now, all I had to do was more of the same. I don’t mean
more station songs, I mean more things with that same kind of entertainment.
Things created specifically to make Color Radio far more fun and more
interesting than any radio station had ever even tried to be. “C’mon Chuck,
you’re nuts! You’re gonna put so much crap on the air you’re gonna fall on your
face!” That was me talking to me. Then I got scared. There was an awful lot of
money riding on what I was doing here. Awful lot of careers too. “Stick with
what you know works!” I told myself. “Yeah, you’re right. But you know what? I
know that specially created little listener bonuses work. That’s the stuff that
gives the color to Color Radio. Yeah, that’s what adds the clutter to it too.
Keep it clean, Chuckie. Keep it clean!” My little me on me conversation was
interrupted when Gloria Wood sang three sexy little words I’d never heard
before.
“Hey Bill Boy.”
The singers were going over the tracks in the control room. It always amazes how
professional singers can pick up a piece of sheet music and sing it. Boom! Just
like that. Without ever having seen it before. They’d sing it once through, then
Johnny would tell them to change this, or move that. One of them might make a
comment about his or her particular part, “This might be better if ...” John
would agree or disagree or the one little suggestion could trigger a discussion
about the whole piece. They’d sing it though one more time, maybe make another
couple of changes and then move on to the next. Gloria sang those three little
words as an ad-lib tag to the Bill Ballance theme we were recording. “What was
that you just sang. Something about a bell boy?”
“Bill Boy,” said Gloria, “Hey Bill Boy. I thought it was cute.”
“I thought it was great.” I said. Then Johnny Mann jumped in to suggest a couple
of other places within the theme where she could insert it. The entire session
was like that. Everyone was so enthused about what we were doing the magic was
coming from everywhere. The playback of each new track we recorded was followed
by Johnny saying, “Don’t you just LOVE IT?” And love it we did. What a
spectacular day.
The next day was kind of the opposite ... I was looking for the worst record I
could find. My good friend George Jay, probably at that time the Number One
recorded promotion man in the business gave me a record called Sweetie Pie.
IIIIEEEEEE SWEET-TEE-PIE. That
was pretty much the whole lyric. It was terrible. It was perfect. Here is what
we did: Some how, on December 31, (which was the day before our official launch)
while everybody everywhere was having a party, some nut snuck into the radio
station and locked himself in the announce booth. This next part, anyone in
radio would know was not altogether possible but the audience bought into it
completely. The “nut” had brought into the booth with him a single record, which
he was going to play ... over and over again. The nut, by the way, was me.
The idea here was just to create a lot of attention. So, while this nut was
locked in the booth, people were pounding on the door warning him that they were
about to call the police. Then fifteen or so minutes later, the police (actually
a couple of the jox) were pounding on the door,”Come out of there right now or
you will be put under arrest!” In the meantime, me the nut, was satisfying a
life long dream to be on the radio. I only had the one record but each time I
played it I would intro it as though it was one of the top hits. “Now, the
lovely Joni James steps into the vocal spotlight to share the wonders of,
Moonlight in Vermont” And the audience would hear IIIIEEEEEE SWEET-TEE-PIE. Next
time, “Now Roy Hamilton is here to entertain as he describes musically the
beautiful Ebb Tide.” That too lead into IIIIEEEEEE SWEET-TEE-PIE.
All of this would be so unbelievable to the audience that everyone would call
all of their friends to say, “Have you heard what’s going on at KFWB? Some creep
has taken over the radio station ... you gotta hear it! It’s crazy.” Or
something like that. In the meantime I was having a ball.
People were sending food to me. The station was getting telegrams suggesting
ways to get rid of the madman. More pounding on the door. Firemen (once again
the jox) could be heard through the ‘soundproof’ door threatening to chop their
way in but then you could hear the General Manager, and it really was Bob
Purcell, forbidding them to destroy the door. Later in the day one of the
station salesman (another of the deejays) could be heard shouting through the
door, pleading with me to read the Standard Shoes commercial in the big book
that was in front of me. To which I said with great glee, “Okay!” I started to
read the commercial, making it sound as much like ‘Amateur Night’ as my
professional(?) training would allow. The salesman screaming from behind the
door, “No! No! You have to accent the words On Sale.”
“What do you mean, Accent the words?”
The salesman, of course, had no idea what he meant, “You know. Say it louder
than the rest, like ON SALE!”
People within the station were (supposedly) holding up signs which I could see
through the announce booth window. “Say the time more often. People want to know
what time it is.” and, “There’s a real traffic tie up on the Hollywood Freeway.
Tell people to take an alternate route.” I read that one and asked, “What’s an
alternate route?” And they scribbled back, “Go a different way!” “Which Way?”
The signs went on for awhile, the biggest one of all saying GET THE HELL OUT OF
THERE!!! To which I responded with something like, “Oh I can’t right now. I have
to introduce the KFWB Exclusive, Tommy Edwards singing, Be My Baby” Then,
IIIIEEEEEE SWEET-TEE-PIE.
Still later, I told the audience ( if there was anyone left) that someone had
slipped a note under the door which said, “Tell people about the balloons. Today
at 4:00 at ten main intersections throughout Los Angeles, KFWB will be dropping
balloons which say “Color Radio Starts New Years Day!” Every tenth balloon will
have a ten dollar bill attached and every hundredth balloon will have a hundred
dollar bill.”
That balloon thing was really stupid. Someone had told us that if we put just a
little helium in each balloon they would float very slowly to the ground. Almost
true. We had hired a bunch of kids to go into rooms which we had rented in high
rise buildings surrounding the ten intersections, in which they would find a
hundred or so balloons. They were to fill up the balloons, mostly with plain air
and a just a little helium. Then at four o’clock they were to push the balloons
out of the windows. Which they did. But, the balloons did not float slowly to
the ground. They floated slowly out of sight, with all that money attached.
I had locked myself into the
booth during the Ten AM news when Al Jarvis had stepped out for a little break.
By three that afternoon I was not all sure this thing was working. I mean the
whole point of it was to make the guy in the booth sound like an amateur doing
stupid things and I kept wondering, as time went on, if anyone would be
listening to this ‘dumbness’ for any length of time. The switchboard kept
telling me that all the lines were busy and they couldn’t handle all the calls
but still I began to feel real uneasy. But then, at about four, walking into the
control room came a Channel 7 News cameraman and a lovely reporter. I agreed to
allow her into the booth to interview me providing they “... didn’t try anything
funny.”
The whole thing was an immense success. But there was one problem, I had stayed
in that booth till Color Radio was born at 6:00 AM New Years Day and on the
greatest day of my life I could hardly stay awake. Bruce Hayes was first, 6 to
9, and when I wasn’t nodding off, I thought he was fine. Al Jarvis followed
Bruce 9 to noon and then Joe Yocam and that was scary. You could tell that both
of them were not at all comfortable and I was suddenly wide awake saying to
myself “Shit.” every time I thought they did something wrong. “Shit! Shit!
Shit!” But then at 3:00 Elliot Field came on with his “Cast of thousands”
multiple voices. Elliot was a marvelous entertainer with such a great feel for
what we were doing that by 3:30 I knew that what we were doing was exactly
right.
Color Radio was born. And if I
was the doctor who brought it into the world, Elliot Field was the midwife.
(...to be continued)
