KJR Seattle Memories – Norm Gregory’s thoughts about other KJR personalities

Circa 2001—
Norm’s recollections and comments about others who worked at 95 KJR. These are scraped from Norm Gregory’s website.

BILL RICE
Bill has probably worked at KJR longer than anyone. Doing, mostly, news from the early ’80s well into the ’90s. In fact Bill Rice is the answer to great KJR trivia question. “Who was the last jock to play music on KJR-AM?” In the early ’90s, Bill did a show from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m., the hour before Gary Lockwood came on, called “Daybreak,” during which he played music, did news, sports and weather. After Lockwood’s departure in 1991, as the transition to full time sports was under way, Bill continued to do the “Daybreak” show for a couple of months . . . thus making him the last person to have a ‘Music show’ on KJR AM.
In April, 2002, Bill left the KJR news microphone. From The Seattle P.I.

BOB BROOKS
Bob Brooks worked at KJR from July 1982 to 1986.

Bob says: “I still recall the shock of seeing “The Pink Palace on The Duwamish” for the first time. P.D. Ben Hill drove me there straight from the airport the day I arrived. I wondered why he was taking me to the transmitter…when he explained, “No this is IT”!”

“Still I couldn’t have been prouder, thinking that I had made it to this legendary station….My god, a month after I arrived I’m calling the back stretch of the hydro races with Pat O’Day anchoring. I was in heaven! I started in the 7 to midnight slot and don’t know what made me more uncomfortable, the rats running in the hallway at night or listening to P.M. drive jock Eric Chase’s ex dunning him on the request line for more support payments while I pulled carts for my show!”
“Lock Jock, Norm Gregory, Sky Walker, Klem Daniels producing Stewart Street Mysteries, Les Parsons, Gregg Hersholt and Bill Rice on news. I worked with a great crew!”

B.R. BRADBURY
B.R. Bradbury’s stint at KJR was as Gary Lockwood’s morning newsman, and really almost a co-host, in the early ’80s. But as Bill Munson B.R. had made his name in Seattle radio doing news at KOL in the late ’60s.
B.R. started his radio career in 1963 at KHOK/Hoquiam. In 1965 he became News Director at KOL and in 1970 B.R. took the same job at KFRC/San Francisco. Transferring to KHJ/Los Angeles he became the award-winning newsman for legendary morning man Robert W. Morgan. B.R. returned to the Pacific Northwest in the ’80s to work with Lockwood. BR’s last radio gig was as News Director for CFUN/Vancouver, BC. B.R. retired from radio in 1995 and continued living in Blaine, WA where he was employed in the insurance business.
William R. Bradbury died from a heart attack on Jan. 17, 2001. He was 58 years old.

BUZZ BARR
Buzz worked mid-days at KJR in the late ’60s/early ’70s. He arrived in 1967 and left in 1971 for KING (Buzz says “O’Day and I had words that day or I would have stayed”). Initially Buzz worked 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. between Lan Roberts in the morning and Pat O’Day in the afternoon. When Lan left Bwana Johnny was hired a “Johnny Carson” typed show was put together with Bwana and Buzz together for 6-9 a.m., then Buzz did 9 a.m. -noon on his own . . . when Bwana left (and Emp Smith arrived) Buzz went back to 10-2 for a short time period.

DOC DOWNEY
In the early sixties Morton Downey Jr. was a radio disc jockey, working at KJR as Doc Downey for six months.
Pat O’Day remembers: Doc was the son of Morton Downey, a very famous recording artist and radio performer of the 1930’s. Doc grew up, somewhat separated from his father but under his fathers shadow and was burdened with that feeling that he must succeed to his family birthright of fame and success. ( I should say that this is a burden carried by so many of the youngsters of the famous.)

I got acquainted with Doc when the late Bill Gavin talked me into hiring him. Doc had been in and out of a couple dozen radio stations at that point and Bill, overestimating my abilities, said “I was just the guy to help him find himself” It should be pointed out that Bill had been a good friend of Doc’s father.

Doc came to Seattle after a stint in Chicago. He brought along a Playboy Bunny that he was to marry while in Seattle. I tried to get him into a house or apartment but to the best of my recollection, he never moved out of the hotel. Doc had a great deal of trouble thinking of KJR as a future. Although he said he was committed and was going to make Seattle his home, Doc was on his way to somewhere, he just didn’t know where.

Our troubled relationship mainly had to do with the fact that he was oblivious to the stations policies and format. That he truly went on to be the first Jerry Springer is not surprising because in his brief stint with us in Seattle, he was trying to be, without even knowing it, the first “Shock Jock”!

According to Pat Downey was, for a couple of months, the GM of the New Orleans Jazz in the NBA, had a record contract with Cadence Records and put out a couple of singles.

And yes, Downey went on to bigger things as a ‘Trash TV’ icon, leading the way for Jerry Springer and Jenny Jones.

Morton Downey died of lung cancer and other respiratory problems on March, 12, 2001. He was 67.

EMPEROR SMITH
Lee “Emperor” Smith was the KJR morning man from late 1969 to early 1974. He arrived from Spokane to take over from the short lived Bwana Johnny and “retired” to the KJR sales department four years later.
The Emp died in Riverside CA on October 12, 2001 of cancer. The skin cancer was first detected in 1997, by August 2001 it had spread to other parts of the body. Joel Leroy Smith was 59 years old. [ Seattle P.I. ]

GARY TAYLOR
Gary, born in Seattle, graduated from High School in Sequim, worked at KJR twice. As a mid-day jock in the mid ’60s and later as the off-air Program Director in the mid ’70s. Between KJR stints he was PD at KJRB, Spokane.

Gary arrived at KJR in February 1965, replacing Mike Phillips. He had been at KISN Portland with Tom Murphy and Les Parsons. The following August he was “transferred” to KNEW to replace Jerry Kaye as PD. Gary says: “Actually, Pat O’Day wanted Jerry back on the air at KJR with Larry Lujack, and Jerry hated Spokane – he had been sent over there to replace Jimmy Darin who left the Spokane PD job to go to Winnipeg, Canada. ”

“At the time, Spokane’s KNEW included Jim Sims who went to KJR and then returned just like Charlie Brown and Mike Dalton. Emp (Lee Smith) joined KNEW as did Tom Murphy before the call letters were changed to KJRB – that was 1966. I think Tom went to Seattle at that time, I do recall telling Pat I could hire Tom because ‘Famous’ really needed a job and Pat said ‘God what a find.'”

Gary continues: “Once we changed the calls, the talent started to roll in; Norm Gregory, Gary Shannon while Charlie Brown and John Maynard were at KEWC – Eastern WA U. Charlie was ‘L. Harvey Brown, the boy in the Rain barrel’ and Maynard worked weekends with the name of Buzz Lawrence (my fault). Once we owned Spokane, Pat and Gaylen Blackford started pulling talent from the ‘farm club.’ Shannon Sweatte went over as GSM, McCoun as a seller, Norm, Gary and then Lee (I think that was the order).”

“Les Smith called me in 1969 and said ‘You did a hell of a job with that talent in Spokane, can you do the same in Seattle?’ I was ‘transferred’ back to Seattle in 1969 – the week America put a man on the moon, and stayed until early 1972.”

GEORGE TOLES
George work mid-days for a short period of time in early 1971 after Bobby Simon departure and before Lan Roberts’ return from KOL. As George says “Although I loved rock’n’roll, it was my first time in a rock radio cockpit, having spun MOR records in Detroit and Seattle. Transitioning from the Mormons’ KIRO to KJR was more than just a cultural adjustment for me, as some of you may recall. ”

GREGG HERSHOLT
Gregg, coming from KJRB, Spokane, was hired as KJR News Director in 1980, and worked at Channel 95 until 1983. Gregg says: “I worked with Charlie Brown in the morning (until he bolted for KUBE), worked with Lockwood in the mornings, and did afternoons with Norm Gregory… setting such a high standard for sports commentary with Norm than eventually the station went “all sports.” I was eventually fired at the same time that Metromedia realized they had paid way too much for the station ($10 million) when they bought it from Les Smith…. and soon sold it to Ackerly for $5 million! ”

HOMER POPE

JERRY KAY

JIMMY RABBIT
Jimmy Rabbit is the answer to the KJR trivia question: Who replaced Larry Lujack at KJR?
Rabbit, now Roger W. Morgan, says: “Pat O’Day hired me from KISN in Portland when Jerry Kaye and Larry Lujack left in the mid 60’s. I was ‘time and temp’ –right out of the Drake/Don Burden schools of broadcasting. I wasn’t aware of the name, ‘Jimmy Rabbit’ until moments before I hit the air. I thought I was going to be Jim Hunter as I’d been at KISN for a year or more before making the move to KJR. ”

“The first record I played was an obscure hit called The Grizzley Bear. –Can’t even remember who recorded it. Pat O’Day called me just moments before I hit the air to tell me that he had come up with a great new name for me. He wouldn’t tell me the name…only where I’d find the jingle that was designed to open my show.”

“The moment has a permanent place in my memory. As I held the song, ‘Grizzley Bear’ with my left index finger, ‘slipstarting’ it as we did back then, the jingle unfolded before my disbelieving ears…’KJR – SEATTLE – CHANNEL 95 – HEEEERE’S JIMMY RABBIT!’ My index finger froze on the record for what seemed like eternity.”

“I let the song finish, then intro’d the next song in my best ‘time and temp’ style. Every request line on the phone lit simutaneously…as did the ‘hotline’.”

“Hey, I was no dummy…I answered the hotline first. It was Pat O’Day. ‘Give me your strongest, funniest bit you have prepared…right out of this song!’ ”

“As my life flashed before my eyes, I pondered my next move. What ‘bit’? I hadn’t prepared any ‘bits’. Who needed ‘bits’ when you were the fastest-talking time and temp guy on the planet?”

“I casually moved to the request lines to greet my adoring audience, ‘one on one’. As I picked up the first of what seemed like a wall of incoming calls, the voice on the other end said, ‘who’s this?’ I proudly responded, ‘Jimmy Rabbit!'”

“‘Get the f–k out of town, Jimmy Rabbit’, was the quick response. My career was coming to an end in a heartbeat. It was then that I realized how important to my career it could have been to have heard Larry Lujack before I was thrust into the role as his replacement! ”

JOHN STONE
“Jockey” John Stone came to KJR from WNOE in New Orleans. Doing afternoons, he was part of the first Top Forty staff put together in the late ’50s by station owner Les Smith. In 1960 Stone became Program Director. Plus, in the words of Pat O’Day, John was an entrepreneur! His first entrepreneurial move was to approach me. He offered me 9 to 12pm on KJR and in return I was to split the revenue of my dances at the Spanish Castle with him. In January 1961 Jockey John Stone exits and Pat moves to afternoons.

KEVIN O’BRIEN
Kevin arrived in Seattle from Oklahoma City, he says “via Greyhound,” in June 1972, a week before his 18th birthday. He worked evenings, until moving to afternoons following Norm Gregory’s departure in July 1974. Kevin was gone less than a year later.

LAN ROBERTS
Lan Roberts was on the air in Seattle from early 1962 through 1974 with two brief stops at radio KOL across town.
Lan started out in radio at a small market in North Texas and during college worked as the youngest jock ever at radio station KLIF in Dallas, one of the nation’s first top 40 personality stations. He later moved to New Orleans where he was morning show host at WTIX owned by Todd Storz who is credited with inventing Top 40 radio.

Lan arrived in Seattle and replaced Lee Perkins on the KJR morning show. Lured by a large amount of money Lan jumped to cross town rival KOL in September 1968. His tenure as KOL PD lasted less that three years. In June of 1971 Lan returned to KJR to do the mid day shift. Lan left the station again, this time for good, in May 1974.

Some of the characters on Lan’s show included: The Hollywood Reporter, Phil Dirt, Clyde Clyde-The Cow’s Outside, W.A.L. Street Senior, Manuel Dexterity (a decorative soap salesman), Mr. Science of Mr. Science and Jimmy fame, and others.

Here are just a few of the radio promotions that Lan developed, executed and is remember for:

1. 1969 – The World’s First Slug Race Festival staged on the then giant parking lot of a WhiteFront store. Reigning over the festivities was the Lan Roberts Slug Queen, a U of H costume designer that won the contest when her room mate poured a box of salt on her during the Slug Queen auditions. Over 5000 people showed up for the racing event in Burien.

2. 1969 – The Slug Queen Cannon Shot staged a year later at KOL where the Slug Queen was shot from a homemade cannon at Pacific Iron and Metal Company. The event was a disaster. It was raining heavy but the event went on with a local all tuba band playing Nearer My God to Thee as the Slug Queen was fired from the cannon. The home made cannon looked like a giant black penis on the back of the flat bed truck so attempts were made to hide the symbolism by painting the word “cannon” on the side of the home made cannon. It didn’t help much.

3. 1970 – The Lan Robert Sky Circus was an all day Saturday event that took place at Seattle Sky Sports near Issaquah where Lan had been an avid sky diver for the previous year and a half. The event was totally staged, unlike your average air show. Stunt planes, World War Two aircraft making low level runs with powder charges buried and detonating as if the planes were strafing the audience. The pyrotechnics were excellent. Hot Air Balloon rides, sky diving demos, a dog fight between Snoopy and the Red Baron with 3/4 scale replicas of the Fokker Tri Wing airplane and a Sopwith Camel aircraft were all part of the 4 hour show.

4. 1971 – World’s First Buffalo Chip Throwing Contest took place at the football stadium at Issaquah High School. Lan and four friends parachuted in with the chips to start the festivities after a big Buffalo Chip parade complete with a Buffalo Chip Queen. The Queen was an 80 year old local Issaquah resident with an incredible sense of humor. Ammunition for the event was picked up at a buffalo/llama ranch Southeast of Tacoma. The pick up committee included Lan, his current girlfriend at the time, and the buffalo ranch owner’s daughter. It seemed that the ranch owner knew nothing about the pickup committee coming. His daughter invited the committee to the ranch without his approval. It turned out to be almost deadly. While picking up the poop and putting it in plastic bags, buffalo bull number one started slowly coming over to check it out. The pick up committee later found out that the bull had almost killed several people. At the same time the pick up committee was attacked by a raging llama. Films such as “When LLamas Attack” had never even been thought about at that time. The committee ran to safety with their prized buffalo chip throwing ammo. 5 members of Hell’s Angels led the Buffalo Chip Throw parade that Sunday in Issaquah. Political activist Tiny Freeman and the Issaquah Mayor were the Buffalo Chip targets during the contest. During the contest the mayor’s wife was hit in the head with a large ripe chip. When told about the incident, the mayor just smiled and continued to be one of the targets. It was amazing what Lan could talk politicians into doing back in those days.

One event that wasn’t really a promotion but caused a lot of talk happened in 1965.
With the help of UFO investigator Major Wayne Aho Lan asked on the air for any UFOs in the vicinity to answer their plea to communicate via KJR’s frequency. After asking for them to answer Lan turned the transmitter signal off to see if contact could be made. Nothing happened for five days. On the 5th day Lan and Major Aho asked any UFOs in the area to land at a designated landing site which was Seattle Sky Sports grass runway.

At 8:00pm that evening about twenty people were gathered at the skyport looking up. At approximately 8:15pm there was a glow from the east over the Cascade mountains that moved slowly toward where they were. When it got directly over the area it began to zig zag back and forth. All of this was caught on film. After descending what looked like a couple of thousand feet it shot off to the north at an incredible speed. It was amazing that with all the observers watching this to verify what had just happened, not many people believed Lan when he reported it the next day.

In order to get into the act Pat O’Day started the story that he had hired a sky diver to perform and that was what Lan and his followers had seen. Pat was even quoted that he had hired a sky diver from Issaquah. “That’s funny” Lan said, “The owner of the Sky Port was there with us and was also astounded by what had happened.” None of the skydiving planes were in the air at the time and hadn’t been since the previous weekend. Other sky diving drop zones in the area were shut down that day.

LARRY LUJACK
Larry Lujack, KJR 1965Larry was on KJR, doing the early evening shift, for less than three years (April 1964 to September 1966).
In the early ’60s, Lujack worked at KNEW in Spokane but had to leave after some controversial remarks about a local Volkswagen dealer. He was out of work in San Bernadino, CA, when he called Pat O’Day to tell him he was getting out of radio. Pat asked him if he wanted to give it another shot.

Larry arrived at KJR in late spring ’64.

When KJR couldn’t match the money offered by WMEX in the fall of ’66 Larry packed up and drove to Boston. Listeners remember his sign off at the end of his last shift on KJR: “I’ll see you tomorrow night . . . if you’re standing in the middle of I-90.” And went into the Standell’s “Dirty Water.” If you know the song’s lyrics you know why the Standell’s top ten hit was appropriate.

Larry, by all reports, hated Boston and when WCFL called four months later he jumped at the chance to move to Chicago.

Tom Larson, who was at KJR in 1965-66 says: “Pat O’Day used to say in DJ staff meetings that Larry Lujack, was, ‘pound-for-pound,’ the finest DJ on the West Coast. I came to believe it. When every other DJ in Seattle wanted to get to L.A., Larry said his ultimate goal was Chicago. So, it was no surprise to me when he wound up there.”

LEE PERKINS
Originally from Houston Texas, Lee Perkins was at KJR from the summer of 1959 to fall 1965. Lee was the morning man before Lan Roberts. According to a 1963 press release Lee was “a sports car bug, he drives a Posche, and loves to go hunting for elk.”

LOU GILLETTE
Legendary KJR newsman who was credited with bringing a legitimacy to KJR in it’s pursuit of adult listeners. In the late ’50s and early ’60s Lou was in the middle of a bunch of young DJs bringing authenticity to KJR which it need to get “big time” sponsors such as Sears and Safeway.

PAT O’DAY
Pat O’DayPat arrived as the evening jock in 1959 and left as General Manager in 1974. He moved to afternoons in 1960 and when he went off the air eight years later he was the dominate afternoon man and probably the best known air personality in Seattle.
In mid 1974 Pat told owner Les Smith he wanted to leave KJR because, as Pat says, “I had been there for nearly 15 years and didn’t want to stagnate! I told him however I would only due this if I felt the station was in a strong position program wise. With his agreement, I then let Nick Anthony go and took of the P.D. Position myself. We revamped everything! Nick, (who by the way is a wonderful person) had taken us in a very Drake direction over the past months and we were slipping badly and in fact trailed KING in Hoopers we had taken.”

Pat continues, “We took the entire airstaff off the air during August for nearly and week, held all day meetings with the jocks at the Edgewater and we called it Radio School! We put the station back where it had once been sound wise. What happened was electric! Charlie Brown, Kevin O’Brien, Scotty Brink, Gary Shannon, John Maynard all responded, I could go into detail on everything we did but unnecessary. By the end of October there was no question what had happened. A Hooper showed us in double digits and KING was down to a 6%. At that point I told Les Smith it was time and I made my departure as of the end of 1974. At that point, Les moved me into his office in Bellevue where I offered some help with other radio matters as well as our jointly owned Concerts West.”

There has been, for years, a story going around that Pat was fired from KJR. Pat responds: ” Fired? Far from it! I resigned from KJR but not the company and I resigned in a manner that suited me. (By the way, that fall Arbitron gave KJR a 13.2 Mon to Sun, all demos, Total survey area. KIRO was second with a 7.8 and KING that had tied us in the summer book was a 6.5.”

ROBERT L. SCOTT
Robert L grew up a big fan of KJR in fact while attending Rainier Beach High School he would tell friends and visiting disc jockies that he would, some day, work at KJR radio.
And he made it happen. Robert L., the first African American to work at the KJR, become the overnight guy in the early ’70s.
Robert L. Scott died, of a heart attack, April 1998. He was 43 years old.

ROBERT O. SMITH
Robert O. Smith arrived at KJR at the beginning of 1967 from KMBY Monterey, with his hit song “Walter Wart, the Freaky Frog” still on the KJR chart. His first Seattle air shift was 9p.m. to midnight.

STEVE NICOLET
Steve, originally from Van Nuys, California, started in radio was with KPFK/FM in Hollywood and soon found himself at KPOI, Honolulu. Over a ten year period at KPOI he moved up through the ranks as Music Director, Production Director and Program Director. After serving a stint as Program Director at KKUA Steve moved to Seattle in 1972 to join the new KISW. Steve did mornings, Terry McDonald afternoons and Steve Slayton did nights. A few years into KISW Steve walked across the hall to KJR to do mid-mornings after Charlie Brown, before Gary Shannon, Norm Gregory and Kevin O’Brien.

TOM MURPHY

TRACY MITCHELL
Tracy showed up, from Dallas, in 1975 for the 6 p.m. – 9 p.m. slot. He eventually became music director. In 1978, when P.D. Steve West went to KISW Tracy was promoted to program director and went off the air. Then, around 1982, according to Tracy he . . . “got fired . . . Ben Hill replaced me. After he took the station down a couple of points, I got hired back (in 1984). Programmed again for a year or so. Resigned the PD gig and went back on the air to do afternoons.” Tracy left KJR, and Seattle, in the spring of 1986.
Tracy says one of his favorite air staffs at ‘JR . . . “was Lockwood in the mornings, Norm Gregory in mid-days, Chase in afternoons, Dancin’ Danny early nites and Candi Chamberlin rounding out with JJ. Hell, I’m not even sure that all those people worked at the same time. But that was one hell of a lineup. Solid, weird but solid. Great times during my time at ‘JR. great people.”

Over the years, what remained of Norm Gregory’s website were a few pages with missing links.I had downloaded most of the audio files Norm had posted — unfortunately, that hard drive somehow became corrupted and all was lost. Kinda like how your tape deck would sometimes eat your 8-track tape.

Jason Remington

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