The Bryan Simmons Collection
Bryan at 16, 1976
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Bryan Simmons was born in the San Francisco Bay Area but moved to Sacramento when very young. His life was forever changed when, at 15, his high school started a low power radio station.
Bryan said, "It was a chance to get involved in something I had always fantasized about, and we were very fortunate to have former LA radio talent Lloyd Shaffer as our instructor. He used to tell us stories about his start in radio and his days working at stations in Hollywood and New York City. It was a great way to get introduced to what radio was really like." Halfway through his senior year in High School, Bryan and KROY alum Don Selasco talked their way into jobs at KROY answering the request lines doing passive research and whatever else they could for a t-shirt and a few albums here and there. Eight months later there was a need for operators with FCC licenses (remember those?) to run the KROI-FM automation and Bryan got his first paying job in radio. Three months after that Bryan gave his audition tape to KROI PD Robert John by telling him that "some guy" dropped it off looking for a job. The next day, John and Steve Rivers put him on the air there as Brian Mason. Another five months and Bryan was offered a weekend gig at KROY as Brian Davis. Four months after that he was doing overnights. Bryan says, "I ended my KROY career doing 10pm to 2am". Bryan would later work at AOR KZAP and Top 40 KXOA. He moved to KOST in Los Angeles in 1982. Bryan was the number one afternoon AC talent in L.A. for more than a dozen of his first 19 years there and was rated number one 12+ in his time slot for more than three years straight in the early '90s. During the 80's and 90's, Radio & Records consistently named him to their national list of Top 25 P.M. Drive Time Dominators. Bryan was also the station's Signature Voice as well as the on-air granter of KOST's Christmas Wishes. With the exception of two and a half years at Coast 103's sister station K-BIG 104, he was at KOST until August of 2011. Bryan says, "I was very lucky to be there for so long (29 years) in afternoon drive". With the debut of his Collection on May 6, 2012, Bryan was on The Wave KTWV on Saturdays, noon to five, and fill-in, and Dial-Global Networks AC Pure Sundays and fill-in. Bryan said there are a lot of good people on the beach, but he hoped to shake off the sand. And as of January 2017, Bryan has moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Program KMGA/99.5 - Magic FM. |
The Repository thanks Bryan Simmons for sharing!
Scoped
At this point in time, Sacramento’s KWOD-FM/106 was doing a CHR format, and with Gerry Cagle at the helm, you knew that energy would be oozing from the speakers at a high rate.Keeping that energy UP is Terry Steel, who I knew as Jeff Hunter when we worked at KXOA-AM together. Great jingles, imaging voiced by Bobby Ocean, and you can hear why KWOD was such a competitive station in 1985.
REELRADIO welcomed The Bryan Simmons Collection on May 6, 2012 and more exhibits will follow!
For some reason the powers that be gave me the assignment of editing a station composite. I was pretty green at that point in my career, so this was a daunting task. I had heard a few composites before and tried to use them as a pattern. We used an Ampex reel to reel as our skimmer, so the quality was pretty good. Unfortunately some liked to open and close the mic quickly, leaving very little extra to work with.Under the gun, I decided to do fast, super-tight edits. That was always a regret of mine, but this is still a nice snapshot of the end of our April/May ARB with a phantom contest and lots of energy that creamed the competition.
Featured: Tony Cox (production), Terry Nelson, Barry Fyffe, Tom Chase, Danny Wright, Kris Mitchell and Brian Davis (aka Bryan Simmons).
Unscoped
REELRADIO welcomed The Bryan Simmons Collection on May 6, 2012 and more exhibits will follow!
Scoped
Well, one night at movie screening at 20th Century Fox, we finally met. Less than a year later, Ken was doing weekends at KFI and I took the opportunity to record an hour of one my favorite people.
Unscoped
Radio is a pretty small world at times. You’ll work for someone who will tell you stories of people they’ve worked with, only to find yourself in close proximity with the subject of those stories at a later date. It’s hapened to me many times during my career and Ken Levine was one of those people.Many will know his name from writing credits on Mash, Cheers and dozens of other great sitcoms, and as Beaver Cleaver on KIQQ, KYA, WDRQ and KTNQ, to name a few. An old roommate had worked with Ken at KERN, so I had heard a lot about him.
Well, one night at movie screening at 20th Century Fox, we finally met. Less than a year later, Ken was doing weekends at KFI and I took the opportunity to record an hour of one my favorite people.