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My name is Nori Guthrie from the Woodson Research Center at Library and Rice University. I am interviewing Lee Jolly. Today is March 13th 2019. This is part of the Houston Folk Music Archive, oral History project. Can you tell me about your early life? My early life,

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I was born in Beville, Texas. Uh My parents were from San Benito down in the valley. Uh We moved to Tulsa when I was a year old and came to Houston in 1956 at age six and been here pretty much ever since. Uh I was in

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Houston when in Houston we used to call it the biggest town in America because it really did have the kind of a town feel to it or maybe several towns lumped together. But it's uh it's been interesting over the last 60 years or so to uh

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to watch it turn into a truly cosmopolitan city. What first drew you to music? I think my father did. Um my father was a trumpet player and uh he sang fairly well and we used to sing harmony in church a lot because the hymns were sort

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of boring. But if you could add a second part to them. It made it a lot of fun. So I think it was, it was pretty much my dad that did it. Um took piano lessons when I was a kid. By the time I got into

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junior high, I had enough piano, but I wanted to play trumpet. So I started playing trumpet. Then was very, very fortunate to have a couple of wonderful instructors. Uh Betty Prudent in junior high and then Ed Troon in high school at Robert E Lee, both of

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whom I just have the most wonderful memories of and the greatest respect for. And they really inspired me to be, to be good as a musician. So, um it started pretty early with the piano lessons and uh it continues to this day. I've drifted in and

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out of music over the years a number of times. But uh now that I'm retired, that's kind of my primary focus as far as being productive with my life at all. Um Where did you attend college? I went to a wonderful school called Delmar University in

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Corpus Christi. And they had a fantastic music department and a very, very good student to teacher ratio. There were eight or 10 people at the most in most of my classes and some wonderful instructors and uh managed to uh stay down there 2.5 years on a

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two year program. And uh uh it was a great place. I came back to Houston after that and uh enrolled in University of Houston. But by that time I had too many distractions and I ended up dropping out and narrowly escaping the draft. But uh I

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had become interested in the broadcast business and radio and television while I was in Corpus Christi. And um my parents were tired of paying for my school and my lifestyle. So I uh I set out in that direction, took a little while to make any progress

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as it, as it does in anything like that. But uh uh turned out that the radio business was a very good business for me to be at eventually. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you got into that in Corpus Christi? I turned,

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I was a student there and I turned on the radio one night on FM and heard what was very unusual at the time in 1969 or 1970. Uh some really nice pop music uh on the FM dial, which was pretty much the province of the 10,000

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Strings and elevator music and all that in those days. So I thought that was unusual and went to the phone book and looked up the call letters and called the place and ended up talking to a guy who was a student at the same place that

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I was going to Delmar. And uh in course of chatting with him, he said, well, why don't you come on down and we'll, we'll visit. So I went to the station and it turned out that what he was doing was his homework. Uh, he was a

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babysitter for an automated radio station or a prerecorded radio station. And in those days, the federal law was, you had to have someone who had a third class radio, telephone operator's license on the premises at all times that the transmitter was active and every 30 minutes

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you would stop and he would write down three different numbers that you read off of some, uh, some meters on your transmitter or your, your, uh, sometimes they had a, a remote way of looking at the transmitter. It could be in another building, but you, you

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had the displays there. So that had to be written down every 30 minutes. Um, as I quickly learned that the transmitters didn't need to be read every 30 minutes. They were extremely stable. It was an ancient rule and my friend who I met at this radio

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station, uh, would fill out the transmitter log for six hours when he first came in and then he would put it away and start doing his homework or his reading or whatever. So, uh, that sounded like a good job to me because at the time I

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was a waiter in, uh, in a little greasy spoon restaurant and I had very long hair and the clientele there was kind of redneck. And if it hadn't been for the, uh, for the cooks wielding large knives. I think I might have been injured in that

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job. So, it, it caused me to start looking around and seeing what opportunities there might be. And sure enough, there was not another radio station around that needed a third class operator. And the, the, the test to get a third class radio telephone operator license was,

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it was silly. Absolutely silly. Just anybody with half a brain had no study at all. Could, could get one, pay their fee and get a license. So I'd really pinned my hopes on that. But, uh, it didn't work out that way. Um, as it turned out,

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I, I, in the course of investigating job opportunities, I found a job as a cameraman for the local TV station KC TV. And, uh, it was out in Robstown and it was a bit of a commute but, uh, it was a fascinating business and I learned

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an awful lot about, uh, about the news business in particular because that was the bulk of what I did as a cameraman. The only live stuff that we did was news and, uh, the cameras were huge in those days and had the Giant Valley and all

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that. And, uh, they seldom moved from where they were and you just, uh, focused your shot on the guy behind the desk and then you stood back and made sure nothing weird happened to you while they were on but I learned a lot about production of

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news, about gathering the news and all. Um, it was a fascinating thing to me. I had seen this, uh, they called it the world news reel or something that was a feature on their newscast in the afternoon. And, uh, all it was was we had a,

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uh, a P fax machine. They didn't call them faxes in those days. This was a big deal to be able to trans transmit black and white pictures from anywhere in the world to our little machine. And of course, a gazillion other machines all around the country

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and all around the world. But these things would come off slightly damp and you'd kind of have to hang them up and dry them out and whatnot and trim them down. And then the way they showed him on TV was there was a three ring binder

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that had a blue formica sheets in it. That was uh I came to find out chroma key blue. So the blue would disappear and the camera was focused right on the picture. And all of the pictures you had been put into this notebook and when it

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was time for the next picture and unseen off camera finger would go whoop and flip the next one down. And when you're watching at home, you had no idea how the picture changed, it just changed. And I found that to be fascinating that such a hokey

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thing was so effective on TV. It looks so good on TV. And went on to learn a lot of other stuff like that about the news business. Uh, in course of time I, uh, I was still interested in being a radio announcer. I'd always loved radio

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as a kid but never really thought that seriously about being on the radio that seemed like, you know, way out of reach. But suddenly I found myself working for a broadcast organization that also owned a radio station. And the, the way that I got hooked was

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uh at the bottom and the top of each hour there had to be a station identification and the stations would normally have a short public service announcement of, of just a few words and one and they would prerecord all these on a, on a large reel

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of tape and they had live directors, nothing was automated in those days. And at the bottom of the hour, he would cut away from the network and go to a slide that showed the, uh showed the station call letters and someone would say KZ TV, Corpus

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Christi support the girl scouts. And then you would get a commercial and another commercial and then the next show would come on and one day, uh the guy who normally did that at the TV station uh was not there and nobody else wanted to do it.

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And I volunteered. So that sounds like fun. And I think it took me about two hours to do what they usually do in 20 minutes, reading all these little 12th snippets. And, uh, it was probably the most excited. I had been in an awful long time

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and I skipped school the next day so that I could sit in front of the TV. Didn't matter what was on. I watched the guiding light. I watched anything because at the bottom of the hour of the hour, it was my voice saying KZ TV, Corpus

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Christi support the girl scouts. And when that came out of my TV, said, I just said this is too cool. I gotta do this. So uh continue to uh hang around and let it be known that I was very much interested in doing that sort of

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thing. And they had a sister uh radio station and uh the gentleman there, uh Van Kennedy was the uh general manager and he believed in giving kids a chance. And the station was well known for that. I'm sure that station didn't make any money at all.

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It was just kind of his play toy and he could do whatever he wanted with it. So a lot of us got our first shot at hosting a radio program there on uh K SI X and they played big band music and that was right up

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my alley because my dad was a trumpet player and I was a trumpet player and I was all well versed in that. So, um eventually they had an opening and I uh was able to fit in my classes around it. And, uh I did that for

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probably six months, something like that, uh including uh babysitting the Astros broadcasts where I had to manage to stay awake until it was time for the station break. And then go away from that. It was a, it was a, it was a daunting task for an

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18 or 19 year old who uh had trouble focusing, but managed to get through that. And uh had another job in Corpus Christi, two other jobs, in fact, uh one at an FM, one at an AM and then it was time to come back to Houston.

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So, uh sort of rose through the ranks over a period of time. I was still a musician. I was a, I was a union member in fact, and, and that was kind of my backup to this uh broadcast thing that I've gotten into. And, uh it

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was, um, it was interesting, uh trying to get into radio, I'd get a job somewhere. Uh I worked at K PR C for a little while on weekends. And then I worked at a station called KRBE, uh that became quite a powerhouse in Houston. But at

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the time was, guess what, an automated radio station who needed someone to do the all night shift. And uh so I took the all night shift there and eventually found my way over to KFM, which, uh, back at the time was known as Radio Montrose. It

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had about a 300 ft tower in the parking lot. It was mono and most stations were stereo and 100,000 watts, we were mono and about 10,000 watts. And Radio Mantras was a good, good name for it because that's about as far as you could get the

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signal. But, uh, I took that job, uh, because a friend of mine who I had worked with at Krbe Steve Heel had, uh, gotten promoted from there and was going to K AM to do news for them. And he said, there's gonna be an opening over

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here. You might be interested. And I said, what is it? And he said, well, you're on from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. something like that and, uh, minimum wage and all that. And I said, well, that doesn't sound that much fun, but I

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might do it. Can you tell me? He said, listen, the deal is it's not gonna be Radio Mantras at the end of this year. And this was like in June, I think April or June May, May or June. Uh, he said, next January they're going to

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go 100,000 watt stereo and start playing commercials. They hadn't been playing commercials because the only reason the station was on the air is they would lose the license if they didn't keep it on the air and this was back in the days of affirmative action and

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that was another place where they could hire a bunch of affirmative action employees and salt them away and not really be too worried about them, which is kind of a mean thing to do, but it worked for them. Uh, so at any rate, um, I took,

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I think it took me three days to get an audience with the program director who was the famous Bill Young, uh rest his soul. He's gone now, but he was one of the top 40 innovators in the day and, uh very highly respected and his time

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was taken up all day long, just almost every day by record promoters who wanted him to play their record. And it took me three days to get an audience with him. And when I did, I told him, look, I've dabbled in radio, I've worked at five

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different stations. Uh I don't have credentials to be on a major market station like, uh Kilt. But your little radio Montrose thing here has an opening and I have it on good authority that this station is gonna become 100,000 watt stereo station and play commercials starting

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in January. I don't have the credentials to be on that station. But if you'll let me work here another six months, maybe I'll be good enough. That's all I'm asking. And he liked that and he let me have the job and when the time came, they

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fired the whole staff except for me. And, uh, in those days FM was kind of a new beast and long haired hippie music on the radio. Nobody really knew how to program that. So they offered me a choice of two shifts. They said you're gonna have

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the all night shift, which they thought might be a pretty hot shift on that kind of radio station or you could have the morning shift. And I think they were willing to take a chance on me there because they had Hudson and Harrigan on te, who

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had been owning the city with their ratings for the last 10 years. And who's this kid? He's not gonna be any problem for them. So they weren't gonna kill the goose. They played the golden egg. So, um, I saw that immediately as my big chance and

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I took the morning show and I was very, very fortunate that, uh, it worked out as well as it did. I had a couple of really great partners over the years. Uh, Jay Britt was my first partner and the one that, uh, uh, shot us to

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fame, if you will, uh, the, the relationship that we had was, uh, only slightly adversarial and all with great humor. And she was, uh, she was a real character and, uh, she would, uh, do the news. I had previously had AM news guys who didn't want

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to be on FM. Who would show up at 10 minutes till six and deliver this newscast that started with a head on collision, killed seven today and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like first thing in the morning and I'm jeez, this is a ratings killer

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and this is not what I want to hear on my radio program and I ended up arguing with him on the air about those things. And I went through, I think, two or three different news men before they brought in Jay. And I told Jay, look,

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I've been, I've been talking to these guys on the air and, uh, uh, I may do that with you too. And she was, she had never done news before. She'd been a disc jockey and she was really kind of out of her element, kind of like

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I was too. And that, you know, this is all something new. It's a big experiment. And, uh, we just, uh, we had a chemistry that I guess was very appealing because, uh, that, that, that show lasted for eight years, I believe, uh, seven or eight years.

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Uh, she left before, before, uh I did, uh, eventually the radio station turned country and, uh, in those days I was not really a country fan and I still had really long hair and it was the, the world was still, you went to someone's house, you

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could look at their record collection and get a good idea of who they were, and I just wasn't willing to be a country guy at that point. So, uh, that, uh, that blew up and, uh, very, very fortunate again to be in the right place at

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the right time because there was another startup in town. It was called KFMK and it had been one of the first underground stations in Houston and, and played all kinds of crazy stuff and had crazy disc jockeys and, um, eventually, um, I think the owners decided

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they didn't want any part of it and they had a good offer from a religious group. And so it became a religious station and it stayed that way for four or five years. And then it was bought by, uh, the Marriott family of all people and

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they wanted to make it a commercial radio station and it had been on the air for some time playing oldies and they didn't have a morning show. They were using the morning show that was done in Washington DC and sent to them on tape and they

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aired it a day later and of course, they had zero ratings for that. And when I walked in that situation, I said, well, I got to see surely I can do better than that. And, uh, and once again, I was very, very fortunate in that, uh,

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I guess I just had the right style for the time. But, uh, we had a pretty good audience inside of about six months. And I stayed there 10 years working with, uh, Chuck Schrack who was, well, in his words, he was Houston's most respected bohemian newscaster

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and, and, uh, I'm sure that was true because he was the only bohemian newscaster in Houston. But, uh, he was quite a character. Probably the smartest man I've ever known, uh, full of mischief and full of all kinds of things, uh, that were fun and the

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two of us got along great and had great ratings and made money and had a ball doing radio. And, uh, eventually, uh, the, the spectrum got so crowded in Houston with so many different stations that they were constantly having a new one come in and take

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a portion of this audience or a portion of that audience or whatever. And I think our managers, uh, uh, overreacted in that every time somebody else came on and did something different, they would tweak our format a little bit where for 10 years, we had been

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known as an old D station and all of a sudden we were playing new music and that didn't set that well with some of our listeners. And then we kind of went to a hybrid thing of going back and forth and by the time they changed

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it three or four times, the listeners didn't have any idea what to expect. And our ratings went through the, through the floor and, um, they sold out to a group that wanted to put rap music on the radio, which was brand new in those days. It

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was rather like when Kilt changed from rock to, uh, country, there was one country station in town at that point that was Kikk and they were making money, hand over fist. There were five rock stations in town and all together. They didn't have as much audience

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as the one country station. So that was a good business decision for them. Same thing for KFMK. When they changed the rap music, there was only one other rap station and there were all these oldies stations by then because they were all jealous of the ratings

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we had. And so they had been plugging in oldies into their format and eroding our audience and, um, I was willing to, to stay and play rap music, uh, unlike country but, uh, uh, managers were, they had other ideas and so I was out the door

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there and, um, thought seriously about becoming a musician again, uh, because I had a pretty successful band back in the seventies, but I got used to eating on a regular basis and paying my bills and things like that and I knew that the music was going

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to be a tough road to host. So I reinvented myself and, uh, I ended up working with, uh, with a friend of mine, Tim Leatherwood who has, uh, over the years become the pretty much sole proprietor of Anderson Fair, which is a place that, uh, a

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lot of folk music got sung over the years and still happening to this day. So that's, that's how I got involved with that. So, um, could you tell me a little bit more about your party band? Easy, does it? And kind of working for the Gerlock

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Entertainment Agency? What was all that like? Oh, that was, that was a terrific time. I was, uh, we put the band together with uh old friends, uh myself and two guys that I had played all through high school with. And another guy that I played with

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in college in Corpus Christi. Uh So, uh we found ourselves a girl put together a little band. Uh We were all union musicians at that point. I had been doing uh a few union gigs without the band. They would just call, we need a bass player

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and I was a bass player by then I had taught myself to play bass. I was never formally educated with that. But uh it was something I was interested in. It was kind of fun and I knew that there was more work for bass players than

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there was for trumpet players. So easy. Does it ended up working for the Ed Glock Agency, which is still one of the big agencies in town. And um we played music from the forties all the way up to the current day, which meant that uh old

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people, you know, like the, like the band and, and new people liked it as well. I mean, young people and we played every weekend, most weekends, two nights for about a year and a half, I guess. And we never once played in a bar. It was

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fantastic. We didn't realize what a great job we had at that time. Uh, but, uh, it was wonderful. It was an organic, uh, situation for us and that we were all friends before and we all wanted to do this thing and everybody was very dedicated to

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it, including the girl, uh, Nancy whose last name I'll never remember. But, uh, uh, she was a wonderful singer and, and saw that we were good musicians and it was a great chance for her. So we had a, we had a very good time. Uh, we

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all still had day jobs. Uh, they were menial and, and, uh, minimum wage and all of that. But, uh, we made pretty good money as, as a, as a band. And, uh, it was, uh, it was tough to give it up for me when, uh, when

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I finally got my shot to do morning shows, I had a shift on Saturday that was from 6 a.m. until noon. And that meant that when I got home Friday night, Saturday morning at two or three in the morning, I would only get two or three

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hours sleep before I had to do this six hour show on Saturday. And I just thought, where is the potential here kid, being a musician or being on the radio? And I said, I just can't ignore this chance. I've got, I've got to do the radio

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and give it my all. So the band broke up and that was the end of that. But, uh, so was the band playing in places like steak and ale and some of the, like some of the steakhouses? No, we, we played in hotel ballrooms and in

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people's homes, we never played in a, I think once we played at a Holiday Inn, I think we did a Friday Saturday gig at a Holiday Inn. And I think that's the only time we ever played to any place that was open to the public. They

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were all private parties. Ok, cool. It was fantastic. Um, and then when you joined Kilt, when it was Radio Montrose, can you just kind of talk about what the community was like at that time? Boy, I did a lot of my growing up in Montrose, it

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was great. Uh, when I got out of my parents' house, that was the first place I wound up. And, uh, I counted up one time I think I lived in six different places over about three years, Montrose was wonderful. It's still wonderful, but in a different

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way, uh, in those days it was, uh, it was a little shabby, it was a little rundown. Uh There were an awful lot of very big houses that uh had been turned into places of uh commercial enterprise of one way or another, restaurants, bars, stores, storefronts.

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And it was the art community and it was the gay community and it was the all things bohemian community and it was a wonderful, wonderful place in those days. Uh And that's where I first started getting uh exposed to some of the singer songwriters of the

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time. Uh uh Michael Marcu comes to, to mind and Vince Bell in particular, uh were guys that I remember seeing a lot at various places around uh the and gosh, I only scratched the surface of what was available in those days at Sand Mountain and Anderson

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Fair and all of those places. So I, I really found, uh I really found a home in Anderson Fair though. I, I've never had anybody be able to confirm or deny this, but I think that me and two of my friends played the first electric music

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ever at Anderson Fair. Now it's gone on to broaden their horizons a little bit. It's not just one person in the guitar anymore, although that's still prevalent. Uh They've had all kinds of acts in there, but I think we may have played the, uh the first

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electric music in there and it was really crazy. We, we wrote some really crazy jazz songs. They were instrumentals, there was no vocal, they were loud, they were fast, they were obnoxious and, uh, remarkably well received at the one time that we played and when it

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was all over, they offered us what they had told us they would pay us, which was $20 they said, or you can leave the $20 with us and we'll tune the piano. We said, tune the piano. Thanks. We had a good time. We had, uh, we,

00:25:22.489 - 00:25:34.939

we knew that we didn't really belong there after that, uh, uh, in, in that kind of music, but, but it was a great place and we always appreciated the, uh the fact that they were open minded enough to even let us have a shot at it

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in there. What, what year was that? I'm gonna say that was 1972 probably, maybe 71 somewhere back in there. And I'm not sure exactly when the fair opened, I'm guessing 68 or 69 something like that. And it was run by this, this, um, loose knit group

00:25:59.119 - 00:26:17.250

of volunteers who just thought this is a great place. It had, that place is, gosh, that, that building is built sometime in the 18 nineties, I think. And it just had a, a wonderful vibe to it. And uh the people that uh that volunteered there on

00:26:17.260 - 00:26:36.579

a regular basis were very much into the singer songwriter thing. And it eventually, uh they, they opened up another room and that became their, their concert room and, and uh uh just took off going great guns. So uh it was a real community. Um, Montrose, we

00:26:36.589 - 00:26:51.819

were all hippies back then. That's, you know, the classic definition of hippies. We had long hair and we're clothes and, uh, uh, you, you walk into any restaurant that you wanted to and unless it was just obviously one of the last highbrow places left in Montrose,

00:26:51.829 - 00:27:06.239

you would see your friends in there and, and it didn't matter, uh, uh, where you went everywhere from downtown to the 10, 10, 10 cafe there at the corner of Belgian was there for a million years. Uh, Sunshine House, gosh, Star Pizza started up back in

00:27:06.250 - 00:27:18.319

those days. It was, it was just a great, great community. It, it kind of goes back to what I was saying about being the biggest town in America or a group of towns because it really was its own little entity of a town. You, uh, you,

00:27:18.329 - 00:27:33.689

uh, you know, your neighbors and you liked them and, uh, you were tolerant of them no matter what, uh, they were up to. Were there any, um, you mentioned Anderson Fair? Were there other clubs that you were going to around that time that you kind of

00:27:33.699 - 00:27:48.819

were your favorites or places you remember? Holihan comes to mind. Uh I think that's where I used to see Vince Bell and Michael mccully. Uh Sam Mountain. I had been to once or twice. Um The only thing I remember from Sand Mountain was, that was my

00:27:48.829 - 00:28:03.400

first uh exposure to Don Sanders. And, uh, I really liked Don Sanders and I got to know him later on. He's a really nice guy, rest his soul too. He just recently passed away. But, uh, he was one of the real movers and shakers, uh, in

00:28:03.410 - 00:28:19.530

the, in the, uh, singer songwriter scene. But I guess the real epiphany came for me, um, that year that I was going to U of h what year was that? I guess that was 71 when I discovered, uh, the Old quarter downtown with, uh Dale so

00:28:19.540 - 00:28:37.810

far and, and, uh, Rex Bell and I got to see Towns Van Aunt there and, um, it wasn't Muddy Waters. Who was it? Uh, anyway, a couple of, uh, old traditional delta blues kind of guys and I was, I was just totally enamored of that place.

00:28:37.819 - 00:28:53.030

It again just had the right vibe. It just felt right when you walked in there. And, uh, uh, it was a great place. My, my dear friend, Joy Llewellyn, uh, turned me on to that place. Joy. And I shared a desk in third grade and I'm,

00:28:53.040 - 00:29:03.729

I still know Joy. She's one of my best friends to this day. And that's one of the wonderful things about staying in the same town. This log is that there's a few of us that are still left and we're a pretty close knit group when you

00:29:03.739 - 00:29:20.229

get right down to it. But, uh, the old quarter was, was probably the most successful of all the places that I went to in those days because, uh, uh, it, it exists to this day. It's now in Galveston and Rex is not associated with it anymore

00:29:20.239 - 00:29:34.989

and Dale's gone, but it's still going great guns in, in Galveston and bringing in singer songwriter type of stuff. They, they like Anderson Fair. I think there's kind of a rule that you don't do cover songs there. You do your own material, which is why I've

00:29:35.000 - 00:29:47.010

never played it either of them because I don't write material. I'm, I'm pretty good as an arranger and I'm not bad as a player or a singer. But, uh, that's just never been my cup of tea. But, uh, I've always enjoyed the, the genre and, uh,

00:29:47.020 - 00:30:07.479

and the people who are good at expressing themselves in that way. So when you were working at that radio Mantras and the, the kind of six month span before it, um, increased wattage, right? Was it mainly kind of rock? Did you play some music or just,

00:30:07.489 - 00:30:26.800

it was rock all the way? I very, I have had very few opportunities to play local music on the radio during my years in radio. And certainly not at, uh, at KFMK. Uh, the Radio Mantras was a license to play just about anything you wanted to.

00:30:26.900 - 00:30:41.530

Officially, they had a format and officially they had approved cuts in one thing and another. But, uh, basically none of the management ever listened to it. They didn't care what you did. So, the, the weirder it was the better we liked it and the 12 minute

00:30:41.540 - 00:30:58.390

cuts were not at, not at all, uh, uh, unusual. Uh, and we, that was also at Krbe where I met Steve Heel is when I, I really got into production, which is going into the studio and doing things with music and various sounds and putting stuff

00:30:58.400 - 00:31:18.209

together with effects. And, um, I can remember producing a couple of station breaks that went, you are listening to the radio, radio, radio, radio, radio, radio, radio, Montrose Kiltff, you know, just silly stuff like that. That would be stuck in between two long cuts. And I'd

00:31:18.219 - 00:31:30.369

go back to putting my feet up and sorting through the records and seeing what sounded interesting, you know. So, uh, it was crazy. I mean, back in the days of Moby Grape and the Grateful Dead and all of that stuff first coming around. Uh, that's, that

00:31:30.380 - 00:32:01.239

was what was on radio Montrose. Ok. So you had talked about kind of transitioning from your radio career to Anderson Fair. Can you talk a little bit more about the changes perhaps in the industry? That also the reason why you didn't stay in radio? Well, one

00:32:01.250 - 00:32:14.109

thing I should mention first because I, I did say I didn't have a chance to play local music much, but I did, uh, I did get to help one good songwriter along the way. And that was KT Oslin. Um I had one of the, one of

00:32:14.119 - 00:32:27.430

the people that helped me produce the morning show was a woman who was an aerobics instructor and she had found this record that Kay had done, called The Younger Men. And she said, you've got to play this, the women just loved this. And so I played

00:32:27.439 - 00:32:38.140

it and sure enough, they loved it and it became a hit. And eventually, uh we had Kay on the program a couple of times and she was, she was really a wonderful lady. She was very, very down to earth and very friendly. And I was very

00:32:38.150 - 00:32:57.380

happy that uh that we had helped her gain some success and having gone off on that tangent, uh remind me again, what you actually asked me if you want to say more about the, the, that's really about all I was, I mean, I was, uh I

00:32:57.390 - 00:33:10.359

was surprised that she was as old as she was at the time. I think she was, well, the, the song says she was pushing 40 at that time, I was still, uh I was still in my thirties, I think. But uh uh she was just wonderful.

00:33:10.369 - 00:33:25.290

She, she, she really was down to earth. And I didn't realize how long she had been working in the business to get a break and to finally uh achieved some success. And that wasn't, wasn't a real long live success. But I'm, I'm sure that she did

00:33:25.300 - 00:33:37.270

pretty well for a while and I hope that she's doing well. Now. I haven't talked to her in an awful long time. But, uh, it was great to be able to, to, uh, to help somebody like that. I think the only other record I ever introduced

00:33:37.280 - 00:33:54.420

to the Houston audience is one that I'm fairly proud of as well. I had been out in California, uh going to a seminar for morning disc jockeys and one morning I was driving from Carmel to San Francisco to get my airplane back to Houston. And I

00:33:54.430 - 00:34:08.649

heard this song called Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobby mcferrin. And I was totally captivated by it. And when I got back to town, uh I said to anybody playing this, have you heard this? Nobody had heard of it. Typically the whole west coast was, you

00:34:08.659 - 00:34:19.489

know, a month or so ahead of much of the country including Houston where we were a little backwards and a little conservative. But I was able to play that record for the first time in Houston on my morning show and it became a huge hit, of

00:34:19.500 - 00:34:38.169

course, nationwide. So I was real pleased with that. Uh Mostly though being in radio, I had, uh uh being a trained musician, I, I had pretty broad tastes. Uh I liked everything from classical music up to the craziest jazz that there is and everything in between

00:34:38.620 - 00:35:03.510

rock music was, uh, the, the, the order of the day and, uh, completely lost my train of thought there. Um, I really don't know where I was going. It seemed like you were talking about kind of the scope of the music and how that connected to

00:35:03.520 - 00:35:19.760

radio. Yes. And realizing that, that thank you. What I was trying to get to was realizing that going into radio as a disc jockey, uh, the scenario was changing as I got into it where back in the Paola days and all that disc jockeys would come

00:35:19.770 - 00:35:30.439

to work with a stack of records under their arm and they were on the take from the record promoters and all that and they had a lot of freedom and um because people listened to them and believe them and all they had to say is this

00:35:30.449 - 00:35:41.560

is a great record and people would go out and buy it by the time I got into it, management had taken over the selection of the music and I had, uh had to make an agreement with myself that I was gonna not be that sensitive to

00:35:41.570 - 00:35:56.070

what was played on the air. And I was just gonna do what I did best on the air, which was be a personality of an eyeball, a friend. Uh someone who could communicate one on one to people that you never saw. All I ever saw was

00:35:56.080 - 00:36:11.209

the microphone. And uh um that, that was uh it was something that I was happy to accept. It gave me time to do the things that I wanted to do and prepare the stuff that we wanted to put on the air and somebody else sort of

00:36:11.219 - 00:36:26.449

took care of selecting the records. But I did have the freedom to, uh, to trot one in from time to time. That wasn't part of the station format as morning shows are a big revenue generator for every radio station. They, they want to attract you in

00:36:26.459 - 00:36:38.350

the morning and hopes that you'll stay with that station all day long. That's always been the theory. And so if you got a morning show, uh you were a Kia employee and that meant that you could stretch the rules a little bit. So, so I did

00:36:38.360 - 00:36:53.669

get to play some, some crazy stuff on, on KFMK in particular. Uh Not so much on KFM, but I like the music that was being played on KFM. It was odd after being a hippie with uh hair down to my back and, and all of that,

00:36:53.679 - 00:37:06.389

uh uh after going to work at KFMK. But six months later, I found myself wearing button down shirts and khaki pants and playing the Supremes on the radio and really digging it having a very good time. So it was, uh it was fun. I was, I

00:37:06.399 - 00:37:19.919

was an Omnivore of music though. II, I like just about everything except country and I've even softened on that over the years. So, but I, I loved folk music, uh uh Peter Paul and Mary and the whole hoot and thing was something that was going on

00:37:19.929 - 00:37:34.120

when I was just, you know, a kid in my teens. And uh it, it uh it took America by storm and I, I loved it. It was great, the Kingston Trio and all that good stuff. And then, and then when I discovered the Mantras and the

00:37:34.129 - 00:37:48.550

fact that they were actually that kind of music being made in the mantra is not being mimicked or, or uh copied or anything. It was the actual original music that was coming out. That was of that ilk. Um I found that to be fascinating too, but

00:37:48.560 - 00:38:03.560

I never really worried about playing it on the radio because that was a stretch too far. These were people who were totally unknown, had no, no uh credibility of their own and to promote them would look sort of suspicious, you know, your, your, your manager looked

00:38:03.570 - 00:38:15.120

at, well, what was so good about this one guy on a guitar that you had to play that on your show where it was much easier just to say Bobby mcferrin has done this. Unbelievable. Nobody's ever done an a cappella hit that I knew of on,

00:38:15.129 - 00:38:27.939

on popular radio. And uh not only was it a cappella, it was all him. He did all the percussion, all the voices, all of the sound effects, the whole thing. Uh, that was easy to justify. Plus it was captivating. Everybody loved it until they got sick

00:38:27.949 - 00:38:40.550

of it, which is in about a week. But, you know, he was a great dude and he was, he, he's still good. He's, he, uh, he does some pretty avant garde shows these days. Uh, the last time I saw him in Jones Hall, he had a

00:38:40.560 - 00:38:51.580

group of, I don't know, 15 or 20 singers that stood in a semi circle and he stood in the middle and they had lived the whole show about an hour and a half of them singing and he would tell them to do a little more of

00:38:51.590 - 00:39:04.389

those to do a little less and all that. And then he'd introduce another thing and they, they all kind of take off. It was fantastic. I mean, it was, it was just great creative process on display. Uh, it was wonderful to watch and, and wonderful to

00:39:04.399 - 00:39:23.719

listen to. So why did your radio career come to an end? Why didn't you end up pursuing it after the last station? Uh, consolidation was one of the big things. The FCC had very strict rules about the ownership of, uh, broadcast properties. Be they radio or

00:39:23.729 - 00:39:41.610

TV? And no one company was allowed to own more than a few and certainly not own more than one in any given market. And that all changed back in, in the, the late eighties and they threw it wide open and big corporations like Clear Channel is

00:39:41.620 - 00:39:55.969

the most famous one. But there were a number of those that came in and snapped up a lot of radio stations and it suddenly became very homogenous. It was, it was all, uh, directed by program directors that didn't live in your town. And they were in

00:39:55.979 - 00:40:12.350

charge of 28 stations across the nation and they all sounded exactly the same. You, you probably noticed it if you were a person that likes to drive long distances on vacations, you know, all the stations sounded the same, you know, from Peoria down to Milwaukee down

00:40:12.360 - 00:40:31.169

to, you know, wherever you went, it, it just had a sameness that wasn't, wasn't fun anymore. Um, when KFMK changed from, uh, from oldies to, uh, to rap music, um, I tried to get a job for, I, I spent almost three years of my life waiting

00:40:31.179 - 00:40:44.840

for the next radio job and everywhere I interviewed I would get a story like, well, yeah, we know you've been successful here but, you know, we're a big company now and we've got a station in Charlotte that's, uh, getting killed by the guy across the street.

00:40:44.850 - 00:40:54.719

And, uh, I think what we're gonna do is hire that guy and he's gonna fill our spot down here and he'll probably do pretty well. And then our guy in Charlotte's gonna do really well too. But, but thanks a lot for stopping by. We really, you

00:40:54.729 - 00:41:06.530

know, and you can only hear that so many times before you really start getting depressed. And my only other option was to leave town and I did not want to leave town. I love Houston and my family was all here and they were getting old and,

00:41:06.540 - 00:41:20.310

and, uh, uh, my brother had moved away and I, I wanted to be near them and, uh, II, I could have, II, I knew people all over the country that had passed through the radio stations that I had been in. It was very unusual for a,

00:41:20.320 - 00:41:33.419

a disc jockey to, to work for 20 years in the same market. Uh, most the, the, the joke is most, uh, radio people own their own U haul trailers and, you know, every 2.5 years they have to put everything in the truck and move off to

00:41:33.429 - 00:41:48.000

a new place, uproot the family and all that. And I was never into that. So, um, it just became very, very difficult for me to find the kind of satisfaction that I had become accustomed to in radio. I, I've been very successful. I'd been a celebrity

00:41:48.010 - 00:42:04.870

for, uh, almost 20 years in Houston. Uh, and that gee whiz that offers a lot, uh, to a given person. I mean, I got to fly the good ear blimp. I didn't go for a ride on it. I flew it, I sat in the controls and

00:42:04.879 - 00:42:18.179

I flew around the loop 61 day. It's just crazy stuff that, you know, it would never come to you if it weren't for that notoriety or celebrity. Uh, and, and I really miss that but the grind of getting up at the hours that I kept, uh,

00:42:18.189 - 00:42:35.459

was starting to take its toll on me as well. And, um, I really considered going back to music and, um, I just didn't because, uh, I had made good money in radio and I had, uh, a lifestyle that I didn't think was going to be supported

00:42:35.469 - 00:42:52.469

by music. Uh I was afraid that I was not gonna be happy going back to being a bohemian hippie after, uh being a successful young preppy as it were or yuppie as the term was at those times. So I, I just, uh, the, the thing that

00:42:52.479 - 00:43:01.310

got me on radio to begin with, uh, I, I had always been interested in it. I had a crystal set when I was a kid, had the alligator clip that you put on the bedsprings and then you put the thing in your ear and you could

00:43:01.320 - 00:43:15.840

listen all night and your parents didn't even know you were awake. Uh, so that got me into Ham radio a little bit and I was always slightly technically oriented as well. And, um, I, I had a chance, I knew Tim Leatherwood who was, uh, like I

00:43:15.850 - 00:43:31.090

say, he was Running Anderson Fair and what he did for a living, uh, at that time, and, and still to this day was uh audio and video commercial installations. Um let's say you're a big oil company and you need a big board room where everyone can

00:43:31.100 - 00:43:45.479

be heard and everyone can be seen on a giant screen that's connected to somewhere where their other offices are and you know, all the bells and whistles. Uh and that had a certain appeal to me and I was uh talking with him one day about the

00:43:45.489 - 00:43:55.739

fact that I had been, uh, hanging around for a long time and, and really kind of needed to find a job. And he said, well, I could use some help from time to time that pay a whole lot, it wouldn't be steady. But, you know, if

00:43:55.750 - 00:44:09.389

you wanna try it, come on out. So, uh I did, I started working with Tim and, uh I learned an awful lot more than I already knew about audio in particular. Uh, and, and, and more about video and things of that nature, but, uh, the audio

00:44:09.399 - 00:44:22.239

part appealed to me because of my musicianship. I always wanted to know not only how to make that good music, but how to keep that good music, how to record it properly and make it sound good and how to, how to present it on stage and,

00:44:22.250 - 00:44:35.639

and how to turn all the knobs and switches and uh the various things that you have to do when you're an engineer. So that had some appeal. And, uh, I ended up doing that for 20 years and all along the way. Uh, Tim and I were,

00:44:35.649 - 00:44:55.370

were pretty good friends and, uh, I had always believed in Anderson Fair. I had always believed in their mission, which was to expose new original music. And, um, I, I had more support in it in my hands than I had in my ears. Uh, I, I

00:44:55.379 - 00:45:10.560

could get bored pretty easily listening to a young, not very good singer songwriter where the folks at Anderson Fair were just so tolerant. You know, they let anybody come in and have their shot. I tended to wait until there was somebody that I knew something about

00:45:10.570 - 00:45:25.320

that I liked and I, then I would go to the fair, but in the meantime, I was a supporter of the fair because I was friends with Tim and because the fair always needed something just like KPFT. They, they always needed something. It's an ancient building.

00:45:25.330 - 00:45:42.550

It's been crumbling forever. Uh, the, the maintenance and the improvements that have gone on there have all been volunteer driven and I was happy to be one of those volunteers all through those years. I've done everything from, uh, taking your chainsaw up into the pecan tree

00:45:42.560 - 00:45:56.860

and getting the branches off of the roof to, uh, to helping them put a new facade on it back in. I guess that was probably, it had to be the mid nineties, I guess when they put the new facade on, uh got the, the painting of

00:45:56.870 - 00:46:09.530

the building that's, that's on that facade redone and a bunch of little things like that helped him fix the air conditioner, helped him do this, do that. And uh would always show up there a few times a year whether I knew who was playing or not

00:46:09.540 - 00:46:24.239

because I knew the people that were volunteering there and they had become a big part of my friends. Uh Still Bob Felder is there? Uh uh Bob Johnston was a big uh helper. He's been gone for a number of years but uh uh Tim and, and

00:46:24.250 - 00:46:39.919

his and Joy, the, well, uh who I mentioned earlier uh has been the bartender on Friday nights at Anderson Fair for as long as I can remember. So, uh and it turned out my, my wife that I uh met uh uh had uh uh connections with

00:46:39.929 - 00:46:52.840

Joy Llewellyn that it was totally independent of me. She had met her at U of H and uh so all of these groups sort of intertwined and, and just kept me connected with the fair and with the, the great music that came out of there and

00:46:52.850 - 00:47:11.419

some of the, some of the wonderful songwriters, uh Denise Frankie, uh Steve from uh gosh, hard to trot off a whole bunch of names just on a moment's notice. But number of wonderful, wonderful people over there over the years that uh I would, I would be

00:47:11.429 - 00:47:23.399

sure to be there and catch one of their shows. And, uh, uh, that didn't mean that I didn't mean that I would every week, but I would, I would go, you know, several times a year. Uh, just because I love that kind of music and from

00:47:23.409 - 00:47:35.560

time to time they would go off on a, on a terror there as well. Uh, I remember once, uh, Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen played there, I, there was no way that he could fit on the stage. They, they came well out into the

00:47:35.570 - 00:47:50.020

normal seating area and it was Pandemonium. It was, there's nothing like seeing a band with that kind of energy in a place that holds 80 people. It was, if you didn't come out of there exhausted, there was something wrong with you. It really was, you just

00:47:50.030 - 00:48:08.030

didn't fully experience it. So it's one of those magic places. It's just got so much history and so much vibe that uh um I'm really glad to see that. It's still surviving and thriving, relatively speaking. So, what are you working on now? I'm working on being

00:48:08.040 - 00:48:27.889

retired now, which is really nice. Uh There are some health issues in my family and, and I am uh happy to have the time to be able to help address those. Um, but uh I have gotten back to music and that is probably the most wonderful

00:48:27.899 - 00:48:41.840

thing that's ever happened to me in my life. In terms of personal satisfaction because that's what I started off to do. Uh, I had all kinds of fantasies about doing this or that or the other. But what I was serious about was being a musician and,

00:48:41.850 - 00:48:56.689

uh, I was a pretty darn good musician by the time I'd been trained for 2.5 years by a wonderful school of Corpus Christi. But then other things came along and, uh, you find yourself getting away from that and uh actually making a living and being a

00:48:56.699 - 00:49:14.419

responsible adult and all of those things that musicians supposedly are not, but then retirement came and uh the money wasn't so important anymore. And so I uh have been through, I started playing again. It's been almost 10 years ago, I guess. And I played in two

00:49:14.429 - 00:49:28.340

or three bands and just kind of got my chops together again. And I wasn't that impressed with the bands, but it was a good opportunity at the time and they were nice people that I knew and what not. But three years ago, uh fell in with

00:49:28.360 - 00:49:43.879

uh two other people to make a trio that has been going now for three years. Uh We have a female guitarist in the center, a male guitarist on the left side of the stage and me playing the electric bass, uh on the right side, they play

00:49:43.889 - 00:49:58.889

acoustic guitars most of the time. Every once in a while we'll trot out an electric but, um, it's a wonderful group. Everybody in it is as dedicated as I am to making it good. We want to play good music and we want to play it well.

00:49:59.320 - 00:50:15.000

And to that end we've rehearsed every Thursday for three years. Give or take, you know, a few Thursdays a year. Uh, it has to be something big before we don't rehearse and it shows, it really does. Uh, it's, it takes me back to the days of,

00:50:15.010 - 00:50:33.810

of, uh, easy does it when we had superbly trained musicians who were just fresh out of their educational time and, and it, it was easy to make it sound good. We, on the other hand are all over 60 have various, uh, uh, amounts of, uh, musical

00:50:33.820 - 00:50:46.860

training along the way. Uh, I had forgotten so much of what I was taught back in the old days that it's been a real learning curve for me, but it's great to be back on stage and to be making music singing, uh, and, and talking, uh,

00:50:46.870 - 00:51:00.280

I, I, my radio skills came into, came into play there and then I'm pretty good front man for a band so I can engage an audience and, uh, it's just so much fun. It ought to be illegal. It's, it's, uh, we really have a good time

00:51:00.290 - 00:51:23.260

doing it. So, looking back over your career, what accomplishments mean the most to you? Well, I'm really glad that I could break those two records. The one for Bobby mcferrin, the one for KT Oslin. I thought those were pretty significant accomplishments. Uh, the fact that I

00:51:23.270 - 00:51:45.790

was a, uh, a well known and accepted radio personality, uh, that affected an awful lot of people's lives. Yeah. While I was somewhat aware of it at the time here, I mean, this is 2018. I haven't been on the radio since 1994 and I still have

00:51:45.800 - 00:51:59.330

people that I run into in a restaurant in a store on Facebook, whatever. Who say, gosh, we loved your radio program. It was wonderful. We listened every day for years and years and years and they'll tell me things that I did that I don't even remember,

00:51:59.340 - 00:52:15.929

you know, that it's so, so the fact that I have, I have made people's lives better in that way. Uh I'm very proud of that. I'm very, very proud of that. It's very satisfying work from that standpoint. Uh, and goodness knows it was work. It, it

00:52:15.939 - 00:52:29.659

was fun. I enjoy doing it. They say if you enjoy your work, you never really have to work that hard at it. But it was, it was consuming. You would, you would wake up 4 30 in the morning, be at the radio station by five show,

00:52:29.669 - 00:52:41.939

went on until nine o'clock. People used to ask me, well, we've only got a 3.5 hour show. What do you do with the rest of the day? You met clients, you met listeners, you had lunches, you do evening appearances, you'd be up till all hours of

00:52:41.949 - 00:52:53.189

the night and then you'd have to do a morning show. Uh, you read newspapers, cover to cover every day. You listen to the news, you had to be up on everything that was topical. It was a job but it was a great job. It was a

00:52:53.199 - 00:53:09.320

really great job and as far as having an impact on society, that was the one, it was, it was my years at radio. Um to a certain extent, I'm proud of the work that I did in the audio video industry. I think one of the first

00:53:09.330 - 00:53:27.219

projects I was ever on with Tim was creating a new uh audio sound system for the city council meetings in Conroe. And I would be willing to bet you that every microphone we installed and the recording system that we installed 30 years ago is still there

00:53:27.590 - 00:53:51.879

and recording those, those meetings and providing the, the, you know, a service to a local government like that, that's affecting a lot of people's lives. So that's satisfying. Um I, I have to admit that I've never really set out to affect people's lives. It just kind

00:53:51.889 - 00:54:05.330

of happened that way. And after the fact I realized what I had done and, and uh and I'm, and I'm proud of it, but that wouldn't, that wasn't it at the time? It was just me being me and making a whole lot of friends because I

00:54:05.340 - 00:54:21.020

had this microphone that went all over the place. Uh That's a pretty unique opportunity and uh to be able to uh make the best of that for almost 20 years was uh probably the thing I'm most proud of. Is there anything else that you want to

00:54:21.030 - 00:54:42.300

cover that? We haven't, do you know the capital of North Dakota? No. Um Let's see. I uh, I don't know what else. I was sort of surprised that, uh, you would even want to talk to me because my, my actual effect on folk music in Houston

00:54:42.310 - 00:54:57.399

has been minimal. Uh, the best thing that I've done for folk music in Houston was support the fair, uh, with, uh, blood, sweat and tears and, and, and money from time to time. Although not much on my part. Uh, there are a lot of people who

00:54:57.409 - 00:55:15.060

have given an awful lot to the fair and, and made it possible for them to continue doing what they do in their, in the space that they do it in. Um, but, um, I'm happy that I could have had some influence on some of it through

00:55:15.070 - 00:55:28.179

the years, through the places like, like, uh, and, and Anderson Fair and, uh, uh, the various musicians that have come and gone through those places though, some of whom I've gotten to know and, and be pretty good friends with. I used to really look forward to

00:55:28.189 - 00:55:42.300

Steve coming to town because that meant I could go back in the garden with him before his show and we talk for 30 minutes and he was just a fantastic character. He was a great storyteller and we would trade stories and, um, gee, it's been a

00:55:42.310 - 00:55:59.750

good life. It really has. And, and I'm, I'm proud that, uh, the singer songwriter genre is still something that, uh perhaps more than ever is, uh, is uh influential in the world and, and in this country in particular and that I've, that I've been able to

00:55:59.760 - 00:56:16.040

support that in some small ways over the years. Um I'll give more to my, uh to my consistency of doing it than to the amount of doing it that I did. But uh uh it's a, it's a, it's left us with some great treasures like Anderson

00:56:16.050 - 00:56:33.229

Fair and the old quarter. And I think those are really important to our culture and we continue to drive that for the next generation. Thank you so much for coming to be interviewed. It was my pleasure. Truly, it was. And I think the project you're doing

00:56:33.239 - 00:56:46.120

here is fantastic. And I've seen some of the other interviews that have been thoroughly entertained, uh uh particularly Francy and Lecy sitting down and listening to them for an hour and it was just fantastic. And of course, I knew them back in the day too and

00:56:46.129 - 00:57:03.370

I haven't seen them in a long time. So it was fun. But, uh, it's a great thing. II, I often wondered, uh, especially from radio, I, it, when, when you, when you broadcast a radio program it vanishes into the ether instantly unless somebody's recording it somewhere

00:57:04.110 - 00:57:19.429

and listeners weren't recording it much. I recorded some of it and I've listened to it again and, you know, 30 years later and it's just not that impressive. But, uh, I've often wondered about, did anybody, is anybody really archiving that kind of thing on radio? And

00:57:19.439 - 00:57:34.360

fortunately there are some people and the internet has, has given them more visibility than we've had in the past. But I always, I knew how many people I had, had an influence on it, but I didn't think that that was ever, you know, recorded as part

00:57:34.370 - 00:57:50.229

of history. And that's, that's what I think about this, that you're, you're, this, this project will be part of the history of, uh, the music of Houston. And I think that's really, really cool. This is what university should be in the business of doing. Thank you.

00:57:50.790 - 00:57:52.030

No. Thank you for having me.