… 7:57 on the ‘Roq,’ and let’s throw some Jim Wood on the fire and BURN! …
Practically everyone who listened to “Big Jim” Wood (1932-1990) on KGFJ, the top soul station in Los Angeles in 1966-67, assumed he was black, as did many who heard him on KBLA, KRLA and, here, on KROQ.
Of course, Jim Wood was white, but the sound of his voice earned him the politically IN-correct nickname “The Vanilla Gorilla,” which for obvious reasons was never used on-air.
For my money, Wood ranks in the very top echelon of Los Angeles DJs, and would certainly be in my “Dream Team” lineup with Robert W., Real Don, The Hullabalooer, Gary Owens, the Emperor and Humble Harve.
Listen closely for his trademark finger-snapping (usually accompanied by a joyful yet guttural “HEY-Y-Y-Y!”), which must have caused many an engineer to cringe as the mic level went momentarily haywire. This particular 90-minute segment, from Halloween 1972, has Wood in fine form, clearly happy to be working again. Alas, like his all-too-short stint at KRLA, he didn’t stay long in KROQ’s ill-fated all-star lineup of jocks  Charlie Tuna and Jimmy Rabbit (who are heard in the “Ultimate ‘Roq’ Concert” promotion in this aircheck), Sam Riddle, Jay Stevens, Johnnie Darin (PD) and the late Steve Sands. Eventually he hooked on with “Border Radio” XEPRS, but developed emphysema while working as a security guard and passed away in 1990.
Don Jennett contributed a shorter version of this orignally, and we published a ‘scoped exhibit in June, 1999. 14 years later, Rob Frankel discovered and contributed this longer, partially restored version. REELRADIO updated this exhibit on October 27, 2013.