That first day of January, the first day of Color Radio, was for me the first day of the rest of my life.  Excuse the cliche, but the fact of the matter is ... it was a brand new life.  All that I had been and whatever I had accomplished was done in some different world.  It was like I had been through pre-school, that would be my three months at KGAN in Kingman where all I learned was how much I didn’t know about actually being on the radio.  Grammar School would have to be my five years in Tucson at KTKT where I spent a lot of time in The Headmasters office being lectured and taught the basics by the first real broadcaster I had ever known, Tom Wallace, the owner of KTKT. 

Mr. Wallace was a great and patient teacher and I was an eager student yearning for learning.   Looking back, I have him to thank not only for teaching me that ET stood for Electrical Transcription, but for something far beyond the basics of radio and mass communication.  It’s something I had not really thought about before that time, but which formed the foundation for everything I would ever do from that time on, both as a broadcaster and later in creating commercials.  I don’t think Mr Wallace ever verbalized it specifically but it was there in everything he said and did; an honest, never-ending, fondness and absolute respect for the audience.  

“You talk to them as individuals.  One on one,” said Mr Wallace to me one day.  “On TV you can talk to the masses, on radio you talk to one person.  Talk to someone you like and try to make ‘em like every  thing  you say and do, and how you say and do it. On the other hand, I wouldn’t  give a rat’s ass about what any single one of them says about what I do on the radio.  I think I know as much or a lot more about what people like to hear on the radio than any individual person who might be listening at any given time.   But when they’re all together speaking as a mass ... they are NEVER wrong.”  Eventually I came to think of that audience as a collective genius.  Collectively, they are always a lot smarter than me.   That’s where that ‘respect your audience’ thing gets real.

Then I guess, my time working for McLendon was my Junior High School.  I don’t really recall Gordon ever saying a lot about the audience.  His strongest tool, I think was his ego.  He wanted his radio station to be better than any other station  and he was the sole judge of what was ‘better.’   His news intros always had to be better this week than they were the week before.  His station IDs painting a better audio picture today that they had yesterday.  He never stopped thinking about how he could make his stations brighter, shinier, more polished ... glistening listening is what he was after, although never from the audiences point of view.  Always from Gordon’s point of view.  The thing that made it work was he was a singular genius.
So, I had a couple of good teachers in grammar school and junior high but suddenly, with the birth of Color Radio, all that was far, far behind me.  This was like a University of Higher Learning and damned if I wasn’t The Dean.  I was in command, telling everybody how to do every thing.  The one thing I wasn’t telling them was that ‘fear of failure’ was in command of me.  

But one by one all the pieces were falling into place just like I dreamed they would, although I don’t think you ever dream of them all together as a unit.  You dream it, at least I do, one tiny part at a time,  totally focused on that one thing until you are absolutely sure it as good as you can possibly make it.  And when you put them all together ... it clicks ... this is a great radio station. I knew all the pieces were good but I guess I never actually thought about how it would all sound all together.  Wait.  That’s not true.  I thought of nothing else ... but now, each little thing comes on to make it’s contribution and a fraction of a fraction of a second before it ends, the next thing begins.  I use to call that the ‘imperceptible overlap’.  When you monitor the whole thing, it’s all those individual parts on parade making up one great sound.  The sound of one unbelievable radio station.   

I don’t really remember how long the station had been on the air but one day, I was standing all be myself in the middle of the music library with the station monitor up way too high and I was ‘conducting’ the radio station.  As one thing ended I would cue the next.  The record would end, I would cue the jock, his bit would finish I ‘d point in the general direction of the control room to cue the engineer, the jingle would play and I would cue commercial, then the deejay again, then, the newsroom for a fast teaser, cue the deejay, cue the next record.  Damn near everything happened ... right on cue.  I was being very pleased with myself when I heard a voice say, “You’re not very musical are you?”  The voice was from a young fella who was leaning against the doorway. 

“Maybe not, but I’m having a hellova good time.” 

The young fella smiled,  walked toward me stuck and out his hand, “Hi” he said, “My name is Bobby Darin.” 

One of the really good record promoters, I think it was Sammy Laine (Frankie’s brother.  That’s another story.  Later) walked in behind Bobby and introduced us, “Bobby, this is Chuck Blore.  Chuck, Bobby Darin.  Bobby’s one of our new artists and I told him if his record gets on KFWB, it’s almost guarantee it’ll be a hit.” 

“It’s called Splish Splash.”  Added Bobby.  “Would you listen to it for us?” 

“I can listen,” I said, “but all the records we put on the playlist are voted on by the jocks.  Doesn’t make any difference whether I like it or not.  They’ll vote on it Thursday and if it gets 5 out of the seven jocks votes.  It’s on.  If not, and you really believe in it, you can put it up for another vote next week.  You can do that for three weeks.  And after that we’d have to wait until it starts selling somewhere and we see it on some charts.” 

“Well, Chuck,” said Sammy, “We want to see what you think of it.”  Sammy was the best.  I had just explained why my listening to it wouldn’t make a bit of difference with regard to whether or not it made the playlist but he was still insisting that what I thought of it was important to him. 

Bill Angel was the Music Director at KFWB.  All the records we played, or even voted on were first screened by Bill.  He got, I would guess,  probably fifty or sixty records a week, each one with the pitch as to why it must make the playlist. He listened to every one of them and culled the list to a manageable ten to fifteen which he would bring to the meeting for the deejays to decide which goes on and which goes away.  Every now and then he heard one with which he was so impressed he would bypass the deejay meeting and bring it directly to me.  If he and I agreed that a particular record was special enough to be put on the air immediately, so it would be.  Early on I made sure that no one person could put a song on the playlist ... way too much temptation there ... but if Bill and I both thought it was that special it was put on the air at once and to call listeners attention to it we called it our Pick Hit ... a name we very quickly changed to The KFWB Disc/covery.  Wow!  How much better was that? 

Shortly after my ‘This is how we do it.’ diatribe, Bill came into the room, “Chuck, I think you ought to listen to the other side of that record.” 

“What?” said Sammy, “C’mon Bill.  This Splish Splash has got a sound.  This could be a big hit.  We don’t care about the other side.” 

“I care about the other side.”  Bobby said to Sammy.  “Have you even heard it?”  I think Bobby was a little pissed.  How could his own promotion man say we don’t care about the other side.  “Goddammit, Sam.  I worked a hell of a lot harder on that other side than I did on Splish Splash.  You know how long it took me to write Splish Splash?  About a minute.” 

“C’mon, Bobby.  Splish Splash is the hit.” Insisted Sammy. 

“I think you ought to listen to both sides, Chuck.”  Bill and Bobby were both saying it now.  So, that’s what we did.  I thought Splish Splash was pretty damn good.  Then we turned it over to hear Mack The Knife. 

“I think,” said I, not really thinking at all, “I think Mack The Knife is a little too classy for the room.”  An early demonstration that I was a lot better Program Director than I was a record picker.

“ It doesn’t have that fun, rock sound that Splish Splash has.  Whaddaya say, Chuck?” Said Sammy.  “You wanna make Splish Splash your Pick?” 

I looked at Bill, Bill shrugged a kind of a ‘Why not?’ kind of shrug.  We both looked at Bobby about to say okay.  Bobby said, “What do you mean too classy for the room?  Listen to that orchestra.  Listen to that arrangement.  Sure, it’s a classy song but that sucker swings!”  

“For Chrissakes Bobby, shut up!” Sammy was afraid they were gonna blow the whole deal. “You’re gonna make Splish Splash the Pick, right Chuck?” 

The room was very quiet for a couple of seconds.  We all just kinda looked at each.  Then Bill said, “Maybe we could have a double Pick.”“What?” 

“What?” 

“Hmmph.”  Said I.  “That might be very interesting ...”  Interesting for about thirty seconds, then I said, “Let’s go with Splish Splash.”  It was that kind of crystal clear, precise decisions that made KFWB Number One in L.A. in less than 90 days. 

“The greatest station I ever heard.”  I’ll bet I heard that, or something very close to it, twenty times a day ... everyday, everybody slapping me on the back, shaking my hand, wanting to be my best buddy ... everybody wanting to be a part of what was happening.   

This ... is what was happening ...  

Years later, on my fiftieth birthday,  my daughter Cathianne, gave me that early Hooper rating she had been saving for a special occasion.  “The good old days, eh Dad?”   

“Yeah, Cath.  Real Good.”