"Wanted El Conejo - Ladies Love Outlaws"  
(Part 1 of 3 parts)
© 2001 S.E. King
All rights reserved including worldwide Internet, audio and video publishing and reproduction rights.

Recently Dr. C.R. Hall, a noted Las Vegas Professor, included this passage in his college textbook "This Business of Radio Programming:"  "To say the least, Jimmy Rabbitt doesn't fit any known norm when it comes to being an air personality.   Rabbitt is ingenious when it comes to devising an excuse for playing a country record by Loretta Lynn or Kitty Wells on his show, regardless the format; a difficult feat since the record may have to follow and blend with a disc by Cream or T. Bone Walker or The Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry!"

PERSONALITY RADIO

What he was trying to say, just for history's sake, was that there was a time in radio, when each individual air-personality had the added responsibility of selecting all, or most of the music that they would play on the radio during their show, much as producers, and consultants do now!   Not only did the on-the-air-talent express their personality with their words, and character, they developed a 'musical personality', to further define themselves on the air!    By then blending different kinds music together as a theme and then playing them in a variety of tempos, the d.j. programmers, like composers, became even more unique in their presentations,  and drew their audiences from a wider variety of listeners!   How did these people prepare for this kind of radio,  where did they get the knowledge to make these musical choices,  and yet remain commercial enough to appeal to the masses!   Where did e.g. like Tom Donahue, B. Mitchell Reed, Mary Turner, and Jimmy Rabbitt come from?  Let's find out, by looking at some of the best of these radio legends.


SO WHAT EXACTLY IS PROGRESSIVE COUNTRY?

We'll start with Jimmy Rabbitt,  who was not only on hand for the formative days of the "Underground" or "Progressive Rock" format in the late sixties,  but was the founding "outlaw" of the "Progressive Country" format that even took its name from his by-line in several music publications during the early Seventies.   The format, defined by "the rabbitt's" air show,  and live musical performances,  was later defined further by his  radio column in the "Bob Hamilton Report."   "Progressive Country," also called,  "Alternative Country,"  has been steadily growing more popular since the mid seventies.  It recently gained the tag, "Americana Country."  It's music in a similar style, all dressed up for 2000,  with a brand new alias, and a whole new cast of renegades!

RABBITT GETS HIS START IN RADIO

When Jimmy Rabbitt got his first paid radio job, he was a teen-age rockabilly singer from the East Coast named Eddy Payne who had migrated to Texas to live with his grandparents, attend school, and possibly work with some legendary  musicians that his grandfather had told him about! 
  
A  whole new kind of music was being played and recorded around east Texas,  western Louisiana,  and it sounded a whole lot like the things Rabbitt had been doing on record back  in  the Washington D.C. area with his band "Detention"!   His uncle, who owned several shoe stores in the area, gave him a chance to learn the business,  and all the work he wanted.  But what Eddy really wanted was to be a singer!  So he began to hang out with the dj's and musicians who worked at the KGKB AM studios in downtown Tyler, Texas,   where live music was often broadcast on the radio.  KGKB was the only radio station that broadcast after dark in east Texas back then.  It was around that time that Rabbitt (Eddy) met long-time friend Randy Robbins,  who was a rock and roll drummer in the local music scene  and night time rock and roll star on the radio!    

Rabbitt went back to school,  worked part-time selling shoes,  and was soon singing in a rock and roll band called "Eddy and the D.A.s".  He had already recorded a couple of singles at his friend "Robin Hood" Brian's living room studio on Sunnybrook  Street in Tyler, Texas. This was historic in many ways because from a family living room set-up, the recording operation grew into the legendary Robin Hood Studios with a long string of hits throughout the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties.   Getting the records played seemed to be the easy part.  Rabbitt drove all over the area in his genuine super-charged hot rod  with his high school girl friends in tow,  giving the old dj's an eyeful,  as well as copies of his brand new hit record!   He got the records played,  but somehow nobody ever bothered to see that anyone,  anywhere,  that counted, had enough records in stock to sell.  This is a lesson Rabbitt never forgot! 

RABBITT HOPS AHEAD

So Rabbitt, as Eddy, was still "sportin'  a shoe horn and D.A..,"  when Randy Robbins was offered the midday slot at the number one station in town,   KDOK AM.    "K-dock," as it was known,  was a Top 40 station where a very "young" Bill Young was programming  a  "daytimer,"  (sunup to sundown)  that was sounding better than anything anywhere in the Midwest!    It was a natural training school for the next generation of big time -  big city radio!   The station featured brand a new "Top 40" radio format,  new radio,  combined with what Bill Young got from air checks of  L.A. and New York City radio.     Steve Lundy was doing afternoon drive,  and "Big" John Bass was already winning news awards,  while still in their teens!     When "Big R,"   as Randy Robbins was known then,   moved up to the big time,   Rabbitt was  next in line for Randy's old shift at KGKB AM.  

At  KGKB,   the format was "block programming." Rabbitt followed the morning man,  "Grand-dad"  Glen Rich,  who was a  local country singer and radio-TV star.    He was first called "grand-son",   and continued to play the "country music" or "hillbilly" format  that the popular morning man had followed since the station signed on at 5:30 a.m.    Then at 10:00,   the station launched into what Rabbitt calls,   "a  real free-form,   eclectic,   'juke box-like'  mix,"   of   music  and  network  news",    (The Mutual Radio Network),  under what he now laughingly  describes,  as  "the un-steady hand of a real popular music apprentice'!   

Rabbitt began playing  "pop music",   and the next four hours  on  KGKB became known as "Eddy Payne's Potpourri."  He played virtually everything!  Yes,  everything!  The Kingston Trio to Nat King Cole, Julie London  to  The Four Aces,   Tony Bennett  to  Ray Charles,   The Platters  to   Vikki Carr, Della Reese to Mel Torme,    Frank Sinatra to Connie Francis, even a little Elvis, with Johnny Cash and Gene Vincent thrown in just for fun!    Then at the magic hour of three o'clock,   when the schools let out,  he became  known as  "Fast Eddy"  Payne,   "rock and roll d.j.",   who reigned supreme until the night man came in at  7 p.m.,  and the station continued mixing rock and roll and country,   till  11:00  when the format became jazz until sign-off at 1:00 a.m.  

Eddy Payne the rock and roll DJ,  soon became tired of playing all that midday "square" music, and took advantage of his summer vacation to take a night time-radio job at KRYS AM,  in Corpus Christi Texas.   He was truly "the new kid on the block," who became very popular with the teenagers and college students who had migrated to the beach. 

SUMMER OF '62

That summer of  1962, he learned a lot of  "real,  basic personality radio"  from old pros like  Gordon Clark  and the staff at KRYS,  a powerful 24-hour a day,  AM station that featured a  "tight"  Top 40 format,   that  rocked extra hard at night!    Like the station,   Rabbitt soon learned to rock extra hard at night,  and he also learned a lot about rock and roll at night,  all night!

While camping out on the beach at Padre Island, he lived a real 60's "rock and roll dream."   He got to hang out,  and sing and write music with other kids like  Roy Head and the Traits,   The Tony Joe White Band,   The Velvets,   (with his old friend lead singer,  Virgil Johnson),  and  a  group called,  "Little Doug ( Sahm ) and  the Pharaohs."   In those days,  they were all,   including Rabbitt  and band "Fast Eddy and the Golden Hawks," still hanging around the local recording studios all day long,  recording song after song,   searching for that elusive first "hit record!"    Then every afternoon,   just like in a Sixties teen movie, Rabbitt would jump in his  super-charged hot rod and head for the station,  where he was met by crowds of  cheering kids,  that gathered nightly around the "KRYS Picture Window Studios,"  to be a part of  Eddy's" beach party crowd".  It was a great job,  but summer vacation was coming to a close,  and Rabbitt's girl friend, Marcella, was waiting in Tyler.   More than having a radio career, Eddy wanted to be a singer!


"LUCKY 13"

But soon a chance meeting with music executive Huey P. Meaux led to a morning show job for Eddy at KOLE  AM  in  Port Arthur Texas,  and a chance to record with the pros on Tribe Records out of Houston Texas!

Mornings at "Lucky 13,  the New King KOLE"  was a real 'radio school'  event for the young d.j.   He was required to learn to deliver commercials in Cajun French,  as well  do his own news in both English and Cajun,  and sometimes sing live music on the radio,  as a part of his role as  "The Crazy Cajun's" side-kick,   on a popular Saturday morning radio show hosted by Huey P Meaux himself.  His radio career went well in Port Arthur,  and his morning show was the station's first number one rated program (BY WHAT RATING SYSTEM??).  Eddy/Rabbitt could never get his music thing going.  In spite of his association with Meaux,  and friends Doug Sahm, and Freddy Fender,  he just wasn't getting anywhere with his  "rock-a-billy style" in south Texas. 


THE KID PROGRAM DIRECTOR


So he headed north,  back home to Tyler,  back to KGKB where he started  out.   Only this time,  Eddy was hired as station Program Director!    After all,  he had already been to the city,  and seen the elephant,  and would do the job for sixty dollars a week...not big money,  even then!    He went back to work with legendary radio pioneers Toby Arnold and Sam Mathews at "Good Radio",  KGKB!.

At KGKB,  our new teenaged PD changed the old "block" programming into a 24-hour,   Top 40 format,  complete with new Pams jingles!    He added the "space expander" coil from his Sears Silvertone guitar amp to the station signal for "echo",  dropped network news, and began to look for his dream station.   Rabbitt was lucky enough to pick up the phone,  to a random blanket call by radio superstar, Long John Silver "The Bluebeard" from  WNOE New Orleans!  "The Bluebeard" was one of Texas's favorite  DJs, just by being on WNOE, the powerful Louisiana Rock and Roll station that boomed across the border into Tyler every night after dark,  right after the number one station in east Texas, day-timer KDOK a.m. signed off at sundown.  He had already a "given" in the market, he had recently been heard by all of the kids in east Texas, and he was looking for a job!  Now remember, the new PD is only making sixty dollars a week himself!  He fretted for hours, then called him back in New Orleans, and offered him the point on a new radio war in Tyler,  at fifty bucks a week!  The "big" job in Tyler included meals, transportation, and clothing, a cool  hundred dollars a month traded out.  It was o.k. with John,  who was looking for a "Texas Divorce", a place to be in Texas, where he could work, and establish residency, while filling for divorce from a Louisiana spouse!  Rabbitt still considers him the best "rock and roll d.j. ever, like the commercial says, priceless!  

Then Rabbitt found the guy he considers funniest person ever in radio, Paul Menard, alias Irving Harrigan.  "I hired him right out of d.j. school!,"  Rabbitt remembers. The dream staff was growing. Eddy Payne became "Ronnie Rooster",  the morning man of course,  who hired an LSU student, Craig Bourgeois, changed his name to Alfred Alligator, and put him into afternoon drive against veteran Steve "Baby" Lundy!

For his first promotion, Eddy took full advantage of the fact that over all the years he had ruled the nights in the city, nobody had ever seen Long John Silver!   He staged a giant "d.j. in the window on Main Street Marathon",  where every jock stayed on the air, around the clock, until they had played, and given away "one thousand four hundred and ninety records in a row!"  Then the station began to boast, "KGKB, we don't run down at sundown!", in direct reference to KDOK's daytime status!!   Almost literally over night, the "all new KGKB" proceeded to set east Texas on its ear,  and the new PD Eddy Payne, a.k.a. Ronnie Rooster, was the talk of Texas radio!


JUJITSU JIMMY RABBITT

It  was during this time that Rabbitt began one of his strangest  second career options as a  professional wrestler.  This kid who couldn't keep his weight down when he was on the Washington and Lee High School Wrestling Team obtained a professional wrestling  license for and performed as "Fast Eddy" and "Jujitsu Jimmy Rabbitt".  In fact, KGKB was one of the first radio stations ever to  feature wrestling promotions on the air,  much like the WWF and WWL do today.    Rabbitt and Paul Menard staged a feud on the air,  then held a "Giant Get out Of Town  Texas Death Match" at the local wrestling arena,  and drew the largest crowd that the venue had ever had!    Menard lost,  as planned,  and left town,  as planned anyway!    They later recreated the whole thing several times over, on an even bigger scale in Dallas,  when Jimmy Rabbitt,  Irving Harrigan,  (alias Paul Menard) ,  Charlie Brown,   (Jack Woods ) Charlie Van Dyke and  Johnny Dark  (Johnny Borders ) "fought?",  a tag team match against the 400 pound "The Ox", and Rabbitt challenged and later met world Champion Wrestler Fritz Von Eric in the ring at the world famous Dallas Wrestling Sportatorium.   Once again drawing the biggest crowds in the venue's history,   in this an even bigger arena!    Rabbitt claims it's still a great radio promotion,  but nobody really uses it like it the "soap opera",  rock and roll event  it should be!


REAL RADIO - KDOK AM

It wasn't long,  about a year later,  Rabbitt was beginning to make a name for himself in "personality radio",  and he says,  "It was time for me to move up to 'real radio',   time to graduate from  'radio school'!     He was offered what he still calls,  "the best radio job in the world at that  time for an apprentice personality,  a  job at KDOK AM.     First he  took a cut in pay,   sold his "hot rod",  and moved into mid-days,   following his heroes,  radio icons  Bill Young and  John Bass  in the Mornings,  and was himself  followed by yet another budding legend,   Steve "Baby" Lundy in afternoon drive.    

After a brief, but happy stay at the station,  the "Top 40 crash course in personality radio was over", Rabbitt says.   One Saturday afternoon early in 1964 ,   the normally laid back quiet,  "housewife's hero",  Eddy Payne,   now the mild-mannered mid-day man,  was really cutting up on the air,  recording an air check for a job opening in New Orleans,  at WTIX,   where they were looking for a wild and  crazy night man.    It wasn't to be "The big Easy" for "Fast Eddy",   not yet!     That afternoon, Rabbitt says,  "Fate had something else in mind!",   Johnny Borders,    (Johnny Dark)  then program director for Gordon McLendon's powerful 50,000 watt  "Top 40" station KLIF,  was on the interstate highway,   passing near Tyler on his way back home to Dallas,  when "History was made." Rabbitt marvels,   "He just happened to hear me on a 1,000 watt, a.m. daytime station!   Heard me on the air,  and just stopped and called the 'request line',  from a phone booth! Remember,  no cell phones in those days!    Right off the bat,  he said he thought I was great!    He never even asked my age!   He just wanted to know if I thought I might like to work for him at 'Big KLIF' in Dallas?     I nearly fainted,  "move to Dallas and work with radio stars like Charlie and Harrigan (Jack Woods and Ron Chapman),  Russ Miller,  Ken Dowe and Granny Emma, even my all time radio hero Chuck 'Baby ... the Round Mound of Sound'   Dunaway?",  he remembers laughing.     " I don't know what I said,  but he told me it wasn't up to him,  he was just the program director, but he would recommend me!"

Borders told Rabbitt that Gordon McLendon,  his National Program Director  Don Keyes,  National Promotion Director, radio wizard and soon to be Rabbitt mentor, Mitch B. Lewis, and Gordon's own father,   the legendary entertainment pioneer, "B.R. McLendon" were all going to be involved in making the final choice for  the new nighttime Texas Star.     They would be choosing from hundreds of audition tapes being sent in from all over the country!     "He wanted me to send him an air check,  which I just happened to be recording at the exact time he heard me,  so I just packaged it up and sent it to Dallas,  and New Orleans!"

"I never even gave it another thought!    It was too far fetched anyway,"    Rabbitt remembers with a smile. "Everyone said,   'McLendon  isn't about to hire a  teenage DJ!   It's a Top Ten radio market.'   Bill Young warned me,  'don't get your hopes up'!"    Meanwhile,  my tape was being played in Dallas,   and before long they made me an offer I didn't refuse!" (To hear the Rabbitt tapes on ReelRadio.com, go to www.jimmyrabbitt.com).

There's more ... Coming tomorrow, Part 2 at www.radiodailynews.com