The Curt Lundgren Collection
Curt Lundgren, KUXL, 1967 
Curt Lundgren interviews Clive Davis in 1975 
Curt, 1999 |
It was his attachment to music which first steered Curt Lundgren toward a 30 year career in radio broadcasting. A native of the Twin Cities, his first station (AM daytimer KUXL/Golden Valley) was a unique introduction. KUXL featured back-to-back radio preachers from sign-on till 1:00 pm, and from 1:00 pm till sundown, the station was R&B. Curt has fond memories of working with classic radio gear like Magnecorders & the venerable Ampex 350 and 601, the famous RCA 77DX microphone, and a first-generation rack of (Collins ATC) cart machines.
Stints at WMIN/St. Paul and WHEW/FM in Ft. Myers, Florida exposed Curt to Country....KYMN in Northfield, Minnesota (under the Twin Cities umbrella) was a good training ground in small market broadcasting. Curt attended Brown Institute and spent 22 years at WCCO-FM and WCCO where he interviewed hundreds of greats and near-greats, ranging from Sha Na Na to Hillary Rodham Clinton. One of Curt's most satisfying gigs was consulting for an oldies outlet in Duluth, MN in 1984. Curt currently freelances from his home in suburban Minneapolis, and is available as a music consultant/historian, in addition to doing weekend air work at Adult Standards/KLBB. He was most recently a content developer for "Rockin' Rhythm 50" and "PreFab 60s" at Netradio Vintage Rock. We are fortunate to have Curt's contributions and ongoing participation. Thank you, Curt! |
I realize there’s lots of Doctor Don Rose at REELRADIO, but I thought I’d submit this anyway. My ex-wife’s parents lived in Sunnyvale (Northern California) in the ’70’s, and when visiting I’d tape some San Francisco radio.
Paul Fredericks does news, of course, and weren’t they a great match? The University of San Francisco basketball team was #1 in the country at the time, with a 19-0 record.
Contests included the Lover’s Leap to London and Win Your Weight in Coffee! As I recall, coffee prices had gone through the roof in January of 1977.
Dr. Don Rose passed away on March 29, 2005.
With just a few changes, that’s really what the piece is. Clive Fox worked it out through UA and Jimmy Haskell made the music. Nobody was looking for money. If there was any profit, it would go to charity.
I regret slightly that the track was 100% finished before I did the narration. That caused a few changes in interpretation. (And in those days, we couldn’t do digital editing or “sliding.” The best option we had was just to punch in pick-ups or fixes.) Really, it’s a period piece. I am happy to have been invited to be a part of it.”
– Charlie Van Dyke
John Mack Flanagan hails from New Mexico via KTKT in Tucson. He was brought to San Francisco by PD Michael Spears in 1974, doing late mid-days and eventually pm drive (back in those days, KFRC jocks only pulled 3 hour shifts; consequently, mid-days was divided into 2 shifts– early and late).
Mack Flanagan stayed until 1981, when Gerry Cagle cleaned house and bounced John, Rick Shaw, Mike Novak and several others out. After KFRC, John spent 4 or 5 years at CBS’ KRQR doing all nights. From KRQR, he headed south to San Jose (Gilroy) to KWSS, doing that commute for almost 10 years, until Bob Hamilton hired him back in San Francisco at KYA/KSFO to do pm drive. Until the demise of KYA/KSFO, John had a successful several-year run there.
After that gig ended, he headed up to Santa Rosa to KMGG, a locally-owned FM oldies outlet, staying for only a couple of years since the commute was a killer. That was John’s final on-air gig. In 1999, he decided to retire from the grind and insecurities of radio since it had taken a very real toll on his health. He can now be found working as greeter/security guard at SFO (International Airport), where his commute is now only a 10 minute drive from where he’s never moved: Daly City.
This January 17, 1977 aircheck of John Mack Flanagan on KFRC was recorded by long-time Repository contributor Curt Lundgren during a trip to San Francisco.
Included: Dr. Don Rose for Daly City Chrysler-Plymouth, Bay-Area talent Tom Campbell for Comfort Zone Waterbed Warehouse, several jingles from the TM “You” series (including one lengthy “image” jingle), a newscast from John Winters and an editorial from then-GM Pat Norman.
This 57 minutes is a great snapshot of afternoon drive on the “Station of the Year” in 1977.
John had Congenital Heart issues and passed away March 31, 2018.
I missed even hearing about this event, until I made a routine call to the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting here. The curator, Steve Raymer, is an old friend, and he made this copy available. (KDWB-FM is still alive and online!)
Governor Arnie Carlson declared October 1, 1994 as KDWB day in Minnesota, and KDWB-FM invited the original KDWB staff to celebrate the station’s 35th anniversary. A few classic jingles and airchecks are included, but the main feature are the priceless stories.
Featured: Sam Sherwood, Paul Hedberg, Lou Waters (Riegert), Chris Roberts (Harley Worthit, Lord Douglas), “Bullet” Bob Lang, Mark Anderson, Barry McKinna (Seward), True Don Blue, Chuck Buell, Jackson Ross and Mike Segal.
Peter (Huntington, “Hookshot”) May also worked at KDWB a couple of times and spent some time in San Diego with Buzz Bennett. This is from a reel I “borrowed” from Pete – recorded right off the console in 1961.How about that music mix? When was the last time you heard Tex Ritter and
The Mar-Keys on the same station?
Pete and I worked together at WCCO-FM, and then in 1984 he contracted me to provide the music for an oldies start-up in Duluth, MN. Pete bought and brought back to life a dead-stick kilowatt daytimer on 1390, calling it K-BEST (KBXT). The best part was blowing away most demos in the first book!
Pete currently publishes a surburban newspaper in the Twin Cities.
Ricky The K is featured on KOMA in 1991 with PAMS founder Bill Meeks (d. 1999), and veteran air talents Jack Armstrong and Dan Ingram.
I taped this the same day as the KDWB Bobby Wayne aircheck. They were, in fact, up against each other. I never saw an Arbitron (or Pulse, for that matter), but I know Jim Dandy won that battle. His numbers were always good.
Check the length of the ad-lib “learn to fly” spot. If memory serves, Jim was taking flying lessons from them at the time! Note that KOMA in Oklahoma City also had a Jim Dandy at the time; no relation. And not in the same talent league, either.
I later came to know Dandy (Jim Everts) during his second term at ‘DGY. In fact, I slept on the floor of his Bloomington apartment at more than one party aftermath. Dandy used to have a case of vodka delivered to the station every Friday evening.
I particularly remember him deciding on the spur of the moment to drive to Northfield, MN (fifty miles south) to scout some St. Olaf College girls who’d been tantalizing him over the phone. Fine. Except for the raging snowstorm at the time. Off we went in his Coupe De Ville. He was a party guy, but could always get it up for the show.
Jim passed away on October 20, 2010.
Here’s another of the airchecks I made with the Revere while traveling. This was the night after my stop in Louisville. After driving all day I would: 1) Check into a motel 2) Tote the beast into the room and tune around to find the local top 40 outlet 3) Slap a reel on and go to dinner.
It turned out I was taping the night of the WQXI (790) Christmas party (at the Regency Hyatt House). We get to hear the low man in the pecking order, Gary Granger, subbing for regular Jim Jeffries. The 6:00 news segment starts the tape  note the heavy reverb. Also nicely captured, the jocks “Merry Christmas” wish. Dr. Don Rose was doing mornings then.
In the 60s, you didn’t get to use much Interstate when driving from Minnesota to Florida. It took four days (two, now) and included some twisty two lanes in Tennessee & Georgia. I remember driving south for three days, then pulling into Atlanta in 37 degree weather. In fact, I think there was actually a snowfall overnight.
I taped this on the way back from Florida. The Revere and I were forced to check in early in Indy by an ice storm. So, I got two hours of afternoon driver Jay Reynolds on long-time market leader WIFE.
Now, some would call him a “puker”, and I guess that’s so. But put into the sixties context, he’s similar to many others. I remember Johnny Dollar on WDGY sounded the same. Note the traffic airplane, pretty hip stuff for Mid-America at the time, and the promo for Roger W. Morgan and his “morgan” show.
WIFE seemed to be between classic PAMS series and acapellas at this time. But what more appropriate promotion for WIFE than Bridal Fair? Fledgling WIFE-FM is promoted as “part of the good life at the top of your FM dial”. Also included is a full unscoped newscast from Tom Conner. Have we forgotten when overseas radio news reports sounded like shortwave? This one documents the second heart transplant by Dr. Christian Barnard.
The “gasser” out of news at the top is The Grind, by a local group called Gregory Dee & The Avanties. Those were the days when a local band could have a big hit. Leader Greg D. Maland was in my high school.
Storz’ WDGY was Tiger Radio in those days, when there were lots of Beatles singles on the air. I don’t remember a thing about Sam Babcock  I was a faithful listener to the “Good Guys” of Crowell-Collier’s KDWB.
[Sam Babcock passed away December 11, 1971]
