Golden Girls
Transcript
BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. Fifty years ago this weekend in Memphis, Tennessee, the nation's first "All-Girl" radio station went on the air. Legendary music producer Sam Phillips launched the station with cash he made selling Elvis Presley's record contract to RCA. Billed as "a thousand beautiful watts programming with glamour-sparkled spice," WHER brought women's voices to the airways as never before. To mark the golden anniversary, we present an excerpted version of a documentary about the station produced by the Kitchen Sisters, also legendary, for their series "Lost and Found Sound." [MUSIC UP AND UNDER, NATIONAL ANTHEM]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Good morning. This is WHER Radio, America's first "All-Girl" radio station, Memphis, Tennessee. WHER, 1430 kilocycles, with full power - [FADE-OUT]
SAM PHILLIPS: When we signed on, October the 29th, 1955, the thing was nobody knew that we were going to be "All-Girl." Each girl thought she was going to be the only girl on the radio station. Dotty Abbott, who I hired as general manager, I told Dotty, and she almost shouted, "I don't believe you, Sam! I know you're crazy! But you're not that crazy!" You know, I mean, she was just beside herself. You were invading man's territory. [LAUGHS] I mean, you were supposed to be a guest or something if you're going to do anything as a woman on the radio. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
BECKY PHILLIPS [ON-AIR]: This is WHER Radio, America's first "All-Girl" radio station for sparkling, bright music.
BECKY PHILLIPS: I'm Becky Phillips and I was one of the original WHER girls. At the first, Dotty Abbott was experienced. Marion Keisker was experienced. And I had been in radio. The other girls were mostly new, like Barbara Gurley and Bobbie Stout and - [SOUND FADES OUT]
SAM PHILLIPS: My wife Becky, that's how I met her, in radio. We were both kids in high school. We worked part-time at a little station in Alabama, our hometown. I'm Sam Phillips, and I'd wanted a radio station all my life. Radio to me, it's – it's a living thing.
BETTYE BERGER: My name is Bettye Berger. My career started in 1956 when I went to work for WHER. Sam's wife, Becky, has a beautiful radio voice. And I think Sam recognized that, thinking, well, what would that sound like, women playing records and music and talking and saying commercials and doing the news? That's – that's different.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: There's more to the job of girl announcer than what you hear from your radio. The girls pick their own music, run their own control board, plus looking after our remote control transmitter here at our studios. We have to take and log all transmitter readings every half hour as well as keep a program log. And every - [SOUND TRAILS OFF]
SAM PHILLIPS: They had no experience whatsoever. And you were in a big market at that time. Memphis, Tennessee was a big market even in the '50s.
MAN [ON-AIR]: WHBQ, time for the news, from Memphis. The [ ? ] across the nation - [FADE-OUT] [SINGING, WDIA RADIO JINGLE]
DONNA BARLETT: Before I went to work for WHER, I worked for WDIA, which was the world's first black radio station. But I worked there as a copywriter. I was not an announcer. No white people as stars, they were all black.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Let me tell you about a biscuit that I had.
DONNA BARLETT: This is Donna Barlett. I remember in particular the flour ads. And I wrote spots -
MAN [ON-AIR]: You bake your biscuit with Martha White's self-rising flour with Hot Rize. Have you got it?
DONNA BARLETT: And the reason I went there is that I wanted to be on the air, and I knew I can never be on the air at DIA. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Eleven minutes before eight o'clock. [DEAN MARTIN SINGING, UP AND UNDER] Seventy degrees under partly cloudy skies. This is WHER Radio in Memphis, the first station in the nation to feature "All-Girl" radio personalities, 1430 on your dial.
KEMMONS WILSON: My name is Kemmons Wilson and I'm founder of Holiday Inns in Memphis, Tennessee, my hometown. There's a boy named Sam Phillips. He's the guy that discovered Elvis and Johnny Cash and a half a dozen other real big stars. He came to me. He had heard that I was a guy that would take a chance on most anything, said, Kemmons, "I got an idea. I want to build an 'All-Girl' radio station." So he told me, "You can get this station built and put it on the air for 25,000 dollars." I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you the 25,000 dollars and when we get it on the air and I get all my money back, you'll own half of it."
SAM PHILLIPS: I didn't have enough funds to build it and buy the equipment and everything without it encumbering some records. I sold Elvis and – signed a contract in October of '55, and we went on the air October 29.
KEMMONS WILSON: We got a lot of free publicity out of that because it was an "All-Girl" station and we had sense enough to hire some good-looking girls. And I said don't you play anything but love music, a man singing to a lady or a lady singing to a man. [JULIE LONDON SINGING UP AND UNDER]
DONNA BARLETT: We were lady disc jockeys and we did an occasional newscast. Now, you were cuing up a record with the right hand and you were pushing the tape button with the left hand, and you were getting a remote call [?] on the telephone line. We got a lot of attention, just because we were a bunch of women banded together. [JULIE LONDON SINGING, UP AND UNDER] We got invited to every party in town.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Here's a Monday morning beauty offer you simply can't afford to turn down, girls.
WOMAN: Music, glamour, homemaking and news. WHER, 1000 beautiful watts.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: The 100-percent human air wiglet for just six dollars and sixty-six cents.
WOMAN: Dotty Abbott, she was the one that was really the heart of the radio station. And she was our boss.
WOMAN: Dotty wore black dresses. She walked around all the time with a cigarette dangling in her lip and ashes all down the front of her dresses.
WOMAN: And she would put a cigarette between her teeth and she would tell us, "So I want you girls to get out here now and sell some time." And she'd be straightening her blouse, and she had big boobs and – [JULIE LONDON SINGING UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN: And she would always be pulling at her girdle. [MUSIC TAG]
RENA FRANKLIN: My name is Rena Franklin, WHER, 1956 through 1958. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: MANTOVANI’s “MISTY”] Mantovani came to Memphis, and I remember interviewing Mantovani. You tried to get music that went with your time of day. Being record librarian, that was my job, was to listen to all the music - Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, June Christy. People sent us rock n' roll music, of course, and we would get rid of it. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: "TAKE FIVE"] And when I did the jazz program, I used Dave Brubek's “Take Five.” And I think at that time, there certainly wasn't any other jazz program in Memphis.
SAM PHILLIPS: Now, believe me, I love rock n' roll. I loved it then and I love it now. But I knew the concept we had for this station, that we were not going to use any of my great rock n' roll records! [LAUGHS] This is how dedicated to the field we wanted to get in that station. There was a dearth, absolute dearth of album music. There was so much good music on the 12-inch LPs that was not being played, especially daytime radio. We were only a daytime station, sunup to sundown. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN: Mr. Charlie Sullivan, the general manager of WHER, is the man in the life of all the WHER girls. He handles his eight-girl announcing staff beautifully. Always ready to help - [SOUND UP AND UNDER, OVERLAP]
CHARLIE SULLIVAN [ON-AIR]: The girls, for the most part, are really sweet, cooperative and hard workers. Of course, like all performers, some of the girls have their temperamental moments, but they wouldn't be good air personalities if they didn't try for perfection, which most of them do achieve. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
MAN [ON-AIR]: On WHER – [FADE-OUT]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Stay tuned to WHER for all the news as it happens. [ANNOUNCEMENT UP AND UNDER]
NANCY WAYNE STRACENER: The sound that we were projecting had very little to do with news, although we read news twice an hour. It was kind of a surface approach until Marge. Marge made us newsworthy.
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: And good afternoon to you. My name is Marge Thrasher and I'm your listener and moderator from now until 2 o'clock as WHER radio turns our microphones over to you, the listeners. The first- [SOUND UP AND UNDER]
MARGE THRASHER: Charlie Sullivan called me to do this talk show. He said, "Meg, I got just the thing for you. You don't want to stay home with those kids any more." Anyway, I went on the air and had never heard a talk show. Nobody had talk radio. KDKA in Pittsburgh, and that was it, as far as I know. It was called “Open Mike.” You were on the air in a big glassed-in window, and everybody in town was listening.
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: – Two o'clock. You're on WHER. Open Mike is operated with a seven-second delay in case we do need to delete portions of conversation or comment.
MARGE THRASHER: See, nobody knew what to do with talk radio, especially me! I said, "Charlie, what makes you think somebody's going to call?"
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: Are you there? Can you hear?
MARGE THRASHER: And he said, "No, no, they'll call."
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: Oh, and I'm not getting any conversation. [OVERLAPPING VOICES]
MAN [ON-AIR]: Hello?
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: Can you push the last button all the way down?
MAN [ON-AIR]: Hello?
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: That's it. That puts you in contact with us. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: This is WHER, 1430 on your dial, with studios in the beautiful Mid-City Building in Memphis. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: INSTRUMENTAL VERSION OF BEATLES SONG “BECAUSE”]
RAY SHERMAN [On-AIR]: This is Ray Sherman, United Press International, in Memphis. One thousand striking sanitation workers marched on Memphis City Hall this morning and demanded Mayor Henry Loeb hear their grievances. [SOUND UP AND UNDER]
MAYOR HENRY LOEB [ON-AIR]: I urge you to go to work. I promise you that we're working on a raise and have been before this ever came up.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Dr. Martin Luther King has urged the Memphis Negro community to engage in a general work stoppage.
JAINE RODACK: I'm Jaine Rodack, WHER. There was a garbage strike. Tempers were running high. People that weren't involved in it were angry that we were having all this garbage all over and nobody was collecting the garbage, garbage workers trying to get fair compensation. It was just a very volatile time.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Tomorrow the strike moves into the third day and the Mayor is expected to take emergency action. The workers are striking for higher pay. Many receive only the -
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: You are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. [CROWD APPLAUDS AND CHEERS]
MAN [ON-AIR]: King promised to return to Memphis Friday to lead a general work stoppage and – [SOUND UP AND OVER]
NANCY WAYNE STRACENER: Memphis had this story about itself, that everything was separate but it was equal. And when a spotlight got turned on the segregated city that Memphis was, it was obvious it wasn't equal, at all.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: Then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out, what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. [KING SPEECH UNDER]
DONNA BARLETT: I remember standing at the news machine and watching the news tap out that Martin Luther King had just been shot.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: Like anybody, I would like to live!
DONNA BARLETT: Marge was on the air and I took her the paper, and I could not talk and tell her what I had in my hands.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: I'm not concerned about that now.
DONNA BARLETT: I couldn't talk.
MARTIN LUTHER KING: I just want to do God's will!
MARGE THRASHER: I was on the air, and they chose "Open Mike," because of a big listening audience, to pay respects. I can remember reading the prepared statement, then played a Mahalia Jackson hymn. And then I said now we'll take calls. Oh!
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: - the people will get to the Promised Land.
MARGE THRASHER: I said, "Good afternoon. This is 'Open Mike.'" And it was a lady. And she said, "Are you a nigger or a nigger lover" and hung up the phone. I thought, “What?” I was stunned. Charlie Sullivan was stunned. And we had nothing on the air. I mean, this is dead silence. And I got up and walked out.
MAN [ON-AIR]: The police department - [FADE-OUT]
MAN [ON-AIR]: They attempted to turn one of the squad cars over.
MARGE THRASHER: On the way home, I saw people standing on the corner with shotguns. I'd never seen it before.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Mace was used, which is a chemical gas. Several arrests was made - [SOUND FADES OFF]
JAINE RODACK [ON-AIR]: You're listening to Jaine on your "All-Girl" station. Six minutes before one o'clock. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
JAINE RODACK: People started burning things and throwing things. And marches were happening. And marches had been happening, you know, peaceful, you know, demonstration marches. But these were angry marches. And Charlie would give us our little tape recorder and say, "They're going to have this march on Beale Street this afternoon. Will you go and get a news report?" And of course, we all wanted to go. [ON-AIR NEWS REPORTS UP AND UNDER/BACKGROUND]
WOMAN: We were on the air when people were calling to get interviews, you know, to find out what was going on. Of course, they chose us last 'cause we didn't have any guys. You know, it was all women.
JAINE RODACK: We were not known to be sharp broadcasters. We were lady disc jockeys. But even our station started having calls from all over the world.
WOMAN: After that happened, we had a daily topic because Charlie felt like it was risky to let people call up and vent their hatred from both sides, blacks and whites.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: What I was wondering, whether there's any way that the black people could participate in your program?
MAN [ON-AIR]: Oh, yes, ma'am. We have many, many black people that participate in our program at this time. People who have a handicap – [MAN ON-AIR, SOUND UP AND UNDER]
NANCY WAYNE STRACENER: The talk show was something that made a difference in this town. In the meantime, all around the talk show we were still playing Ray Conniff. There were little dollops of political awareness wedged in between that. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: "MY SWEET LORD"]
JACKIE KELLY [ON-AIR]: And now the latest WHER worldwide and local news. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong have made their boldest strike of the Cambodian War.
JACKIE KELLY: Jackie Kelly, WHER from '67 to about '69. The president of the local chapter of National Organization for Women had worked on the station. She called me up one day and gave me a lot of trouble because the public service announcements started out, "Mr. Employer." And see, I didn't think anything about that at that time because "Mr. Employer" was pretty much what was out there.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Do you have an interest in radio or television broadcasting? If you have a normal voice and a genuine interest in becoming a professional broadcast announcer, disc jockey, newscaster or- [AUDIO/MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
JACKIE KELLY: America's first "All-Girl" station was interesting when there were no women in broadcasting, but there were beginning to be women in broadcasting. I think they figured the novelty was going to wear off. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: “AGE OF AQUARIUS”]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: W.
MAN [ON-AIR]: H.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: E.
MAN [ON-AIR]: R.
JAINE RODACK: Everything changed. There were suddenly men at the station. They paired me with a gentleman named Dick Potter. And I played the fool and he was the intellectual one.
DICK POTTER: All right. You ready?
JAINE RODACK [ON-AIR]: Uh-huh. [AFFIRMATIVE]
DICK POTTER [ON-AIR]: Now, this is for elephant stew.
JAINE RODACK [ON-AIR]: Oh, come on, Dick. I thought you were serious.
WOMAN: As the women's movement came on and got strong and everything, WHER, they changed the call letters, put men on the air. I thought, well, isn't that strange? Here we are, women doing it, have been. Now they're going to – there's no more of that. And then they called it "WWEE Radio." W-W-E-E. [MUSIC: "AGE OF AQUARIUS"]
SAM PHILLIPS: It was not, I'm gonna tell you, it was not a novelty. WHER was an embryo because there wasn't anything else like it in the world. [LAUGHS] [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: We cordially invite you to stay tuned to WHER Radio, all day, every day, for sparkling, bright music, the latest worldwide news and up-to-the-minute local and regional news. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER, MUSIC OUT]
BOB GARFIELD: Our look back at WHER was excerpted from the radio documentary by the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER] That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Megan Ryan, Tony Field, Jamie York and Mike Vuolo and edited - by Brooke. Dylan Keefe is our technical director and Jennifer Munson our engineer. We had help from Kevin Schlottmann and Katie Holt. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Katya Rogers is our senior producer and John Keefe our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media, from WNYC. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. (MUSIC TAG)(FUNDING CREDITS)
copyright 2005 WNYC Radio
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. Fifty years ago this weekend in Memphis, Tennessee, the nation's first "All-Girl" radio station went on the air. Legendary music producer Sam Phillips launched the station with cash he made selling Elvis Presley's record contract to RCA. Billed as "a thousand beautiful watts programming with glamour-sparkled spice," WHER brought women's voices to the airways as never before. To mark the golden anniversary, we present an excerpted version of a documentary about the station produced by the Kitchen Sisters, also legendary, for their series "Lost and Found Sound." [MUSIC UP AND UNDER, NATIONAL ANTHEM]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Good morning. This is WHER Radio, America's first "All-Girl" radio station, Memphis, Tennessee. WHER, 1430 kilocycles, with full power - [FADE-OUT]
SAM PHILLIPS: When we signed on, October the 29th, 1955, the thing was nobody knew that we were going to be "All-Girl." Each girl thought she was going to be the only girl on the radio station. Dotty Abbott, who I hired as general manager, I told Dotty, and she almost shouted, "I don't believe you, Sam! I know you're crazy! But you're not that crazy!" You know, I mean, she was just beside herself. You were invading man's territory. [LAUGHS] I mean, you were supposed to be a guest or something if you're going to do anything as a woman on the radio. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
BECKY PHILLIPS [ON-AIR]: This is WHER Radio, America's first "All-Girl" radio station for sparkling, bright music.
BECKY PHILLIPS: I'm Becky Phillips and I was one of the original WHER girls. At the first, Dotty Abbott was experienced. Marion Keisker was experienced. And I had been in radio. The other girls were mostly new, like Barbara Gurley and Bobbie Stout and - [SOUND FADES OUT]
SAM PHILLIPS: My wife Becky, that's how I met her, in radio. We were both kids in high school. We worked part-time at a little station in Alabama, our hometown. I'm Sam Phillips, and I'd wanted a radio station all my life. Radio to me, it's – it's a living thing.
BETTYE BERGER: My name is Bettye Berger. My career started in 1956 when I went to work for WHER. Sam's wife, Becky, has a beautiful radio voice. And I think Sam recognized that, thinking, well, what would that sound like, women playing records and music and talking and saying commercials and doing the news? That's – that's different.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: There's more to the job of girl announcer than what you hear from your radio. The girls pick their own music, run their own control board, plus looking after our remote control transmitter here at our studios. We have to take and log all transmitter readings every half hour as well as keep a program log. And every - [SOUND TRAILS OFF]
SAM PHILLIPS: They had no experience whatsoever. And you were in a big market at that time. Memphis, Tennessee was a big market even in the '50s.
MAN [ON-AIR]: WHBQ, time for the news, from Memphis. The [ ? ] across the nation - [FADE-OUT] [SINGING, WDIA RADIO JINGLE]
DONNA BARLETT: Before I went to work for WHER, I worked for WDIA, which was the world's first black radio station. But I worked there as a copywriter. I was not an announcer. No white people as stars, they were all black.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Let me tell you about a biscuit that I had.
DONNA BARLETT: This is Donna Barlett. I remember in particular the flour ads. And I wrote spots -
MAN [ON-AIR]: You bake your biscuit with Martha White's self-rising flour with Hot Rize. Have you got it?
DONNA BARLETT: And the reason I went there is that I wanted to be on the air, and I knew I can never be on the air at DIA. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Eleven minutes before eight o'clock. [DEAN MARTIN SINGING, UP AND UNDER] Seventy degrees under partly cloudy skies. This is WHER Radio in Memphis, the first station in the nation to feature "All-Girl" radio personalities, 1430 on your dial.
KEMMONS WILSON: My name is Kemmons Wilson and I'm founder of Holiday Inns in Memphis, Tennessee, my hometown. There's a boy named Sam Phillips. He's the guy that discovered Elvis and Johnny Cash and a half a dozen other real big stars. He came to me. He had heard that I was a guy that would take a chance on most anything, said, Kemmons, "I got an idea. I want to build an 'All-Girl' radio station." So he told me, "You can get this station built and put it on the air for 25,000 dollars." I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you the 25,000 dollars and when we get it on the air and I get all my money back, you'll own half of it."
SAM PHILLIPS: I didn't have enough funds to build it and buy the equipment and everything without it encumbering some records. I sold Elvis and – signed a contract in October of '55, and we went on the air October 29.
KEMMONS WILSON: We got a lot of free publicity out of that because it was an "All-Girl" station and we had sense enough to hire some good-looking girls. And I said don't you play anything but love music, a man singing to a lady or a lady singing to a man. [JULIE LONDON SINGING UP AND UNDER]
DONNA BARLETT: We were lady disc jockeys and we did an occasional newscast. Now, you were cuing up a record with the right hand and you were pushing the tape button with the left hand, and you were getting a remote call [?] on the telephone line. We got a lot of attention, just because we were a bunch of women banded together. [JULIE LONDON SINGING, UP AND UNDER] We got invited to every party in town.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Here's a Monday morning beauty offer you simply can't afford to turn down, girls.
WOMAN: Music, glamour, homemaking and news. WHER, 1000 beautiful watts.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: The 100-percent human air wiglet for just six dollars and sixty-six cents.
WOMAN: Dotty Abbott, she was the one that was really the heart of the radio station. And she was our boss.
WOMAN: Dotty wore black dresses. She walked around all the time with a cigarette dangling in her lip and ashes all down the front of her dresses.
WOMAN: And she would put a cigarette between her teeth and she would tell us, "So I want you girls to get out here now and sell some time." And she'd be straightening her blouse, and she had big boobs and – [JULIE LONDON SINGING UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN: And she would always be pulling at her girdle. [MUSIC TAG]
RENA FRANKLIN: My name is Rena Franklin, WHER, 1956 through 1958. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: MANTOVANI’s “MISTY”] Mantovani came to Memphis, and I remember interviewing Mantovani. You tried to get music that went with your time of day. Being record librarian, that was my job, was to listen to all the music - Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, June Christy. People sent us rock n' roll music, of course, and we would get rid of it. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: "TAKE FIVE"] And when I did the jazz program, I used Dave Brubek's “Take Five.” And I think at that time, there certainly wasn't any other jazz program in Memphis.
SAM PHILLIPS: Now, believe me, I love rock n' roll. I loved it then and I love it now. But I knew the concept we had for this station, that we were not going to use any of my great rock n' roll records! [LAUGHS] This is how dedicated to the field we wanted to get in that station. There was a dearth, absolute dearth of album music. There was so much good music on the 12-inch LPs that was not being played, especially daytime radio. We were only a daytime station, sunup to sundown. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN: Mr. Charlie Sullivan, the general manager of WHER, is the man in the life of all the WHER girls. He handles his eight-girl announcing staff beautifully. Always ready to help - [SOUND UP AND UNDER, OVERLAP]
CHARLIE SULLIVAN [ON-AIR]: The girls, for the most part, are really sweet, cooperative and hard workers. Of course, like all performers, some of the girls have their temperamental moments, but they wouldn't be good air personalities if they didn't try for perfection, which most of them do achieve. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
MAN [ON-AIR]: On WHER – [FADE-OUT]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Stay tuned to WHER for all the news as it happens. [ANNOUNCEMENT UP AND UNDER]
NANCY WAYNE STRACENER: The sound that we were projecting had very little to do with news, although we read news twice an hour. It was kind of a surface approach until Marge. Marge made us newsworthy.
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: And good afternoon to you. My name is Marge Thrasher and I'm your listener and moderator from now until 2 o'clock as WHER radio turns our microphones over to you, the listeners. The first- [SOUND UP AND UNDER]
MARGE THRASHER: Charlie Sullivan called me to do this talk show. He said, "Meg, I got just the thing for you. You don't want to stay home with those kids any more." Anyway, I went on the air and had never heard a talk show. Nobody had talk radio. KDKA in Pittsburgh, and that was it, as far as I know. It was called “Open Mike.” You were on the air in a big glassed-in window, and everybody in town was listening.
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: – Two o'clock. You're on WHER. Open Mike is operated with a seven-second delay in case we do need to delete portions of conversation or comment.
MARGE THRASHER: See, nobody knew what to do with talk radio, especially me! I said, "Charlie, what makes you think somebody's going to call?"
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: Are you there? Can you hear?
MARGE THRASHER: And he said, "No, no, they'll call."
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: Oh, and I'm not getting any conversation. [OVERLAPPING VOICES]
MAN [ON-AIR]: Hello?
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: Can you push the last button all the way down?
MAN [ON-AIR]: Hello?
MARGE THRASHER [ON-AIR]: That's it. That puts you in contact with us. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: This is WHER, 1430 on your dial, with studios in the beautiful Mid-City Building in Memphis. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: INSTRUMENTAL VERSION OF BEATLES SONG “BECAUSE”]
RAY SHERMAN [On-AIR]: This is Ray Sherman, United Press International, in Memphis. One thousand striking sanitation workers marched on Memphis City Hall this morning and demanded Mayor Henry Loeb hear their grievances. [SOUND UP AND UNDER]
MAYOR HENRY LOEB [ON-AIR]: I urge you to go to work. I promise you that we're working on a raise and have been before this ever came up.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Dr. Martin Luther King has urged the Memphis Negro community to engage in a general work stoppage.
JAINE RODACK: I'm Jaine Rodack, WHER. There was a garbage strike. Tempers were running high. People that weren't involved in it were angry that we were having all this garbage all over and nobody was collecting the garbage, garbage workers trying to get fair compensation. It was just a very volatile time.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Tomorrow the strike moves into the third day and the Mayor is expected to take emergency action. The workers are striking for higher pay. Many receive only the -
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: You are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. [CROWD APPLAUDS AND CHEERS]
MAN [ON-AIR]: King promised to return to Memphis Friday to lead a general work stoppage and – [SOUND UP AND OVER]
NANCY WAYNE STRACENER: Memphis had this story about itself, that everything was separate but it was equal. And when a spotlight got turned on the segregated city that Memphis was, it was obvious it wasn't equal, at all.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: Then I got into Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out, what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. [KING SPEECH UNDER]
DONNA BARLETT: I remember standing at the news machine and watching the news tap out that Martin Luther King had just been shot.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: Like anybody, I would like to live!
DONNA BARLETT: Marge was on the air and I took her the paper, and I could not talk and tell her what I had in my hands.
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: I'm not concerned about that now.
DONNA BARLETT: I couldn't talk.
MARTIN LUTHER KING: I just want to do God's will!
MARGE THRASHER: I was on the air, and they chose "Open Mike," because of a big listening audience, to pay respects. I can remember reading the prepared statement, then played a Mahalia Jackson hymn. And then I said now we'll take calls. Oh!
MARTIN LUTHER KING:: - the people will get to the Promised Land.
MARGE THRASHER: I said, "Good afternoon. This is 'Open Mike.'" And it was a lady. And she said, "Are you a nigger or a nigger lover" and hung up the phone. I thought, “What?” I was stunned. Charlie Sullivan was stunned. And we had nothing on the air. I mean, this is dead silence. And I got up and walked out.
MAN [ON-AIR]: The police department - [FADE-OUT]
MAN [ON-AIR]: They attempted to turn one of the squad cars over.
MARGE THRASHER: On the way home, I saw people standing on the corner with shotguns. I'd never seen it before.
MAN [ON-AIR]: Mace was used, which is a chemical gas. Several arrests was made - [SOUND FADES OFF]
JAINE RODACK [ON-AIR]: You're listening to Jaine on your "All-Girl" station. Six minutes before one o'clock. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
JAINE RODACK: People started burning things and throwing things. And marches were happening. And marches had been happening, you know, peaceful, you know, demonstration marches. But these were angry marches. And Charlie would give us our little tape recorder and say, "They're going to have this march on Beale Street this afternoon. Will you go and get a news report?" And of course, we all wanted to go. [ON-AIR NEWS REPORTS UP AND UNDER/BACKGROUND]
WOMAN: We were on the air when people were calling to get interviews, you know, to find out what was going on. Of course, they chose us last 'cause we didn't have any guys. You know, it was all women.
JAINE RODACK: We were not known to be sharp broadcasters. We were lady disc jockeys. But even our station started having calls from all over the world.
WOMAN: After that happened, we had a daily topic because Charlie felt like it was risky to let people call up and vent their hatred from both sides, blacks and whites.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: What I was wondering, whether there's any way that the black people could participate in your program?
MAN [ON-AIR]: Oh, yes, ma'am. We have many, many black people that participate in our program at this time. People who have a handicap – [MAN ON-AIR, SOUND UP AND UNDER]
NANCY WAYNE STRACENER: The talk show was something that made a difference in this town. In the meantime, all around the talk show we were still playing Ray Conniff. There were little dollops of political awareness wedged in between that. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: "MY SWEET LORD"]
JACKIE KELLY [ON-AIR]: And now the latest WHER worldwide and local news. The North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong have made their boldest strike of the Cambodian War.
JACKIE KELLY: Jackie Kelly, WHER from '67 to about '69. The president of the local chapter of National Organization for Women had worked on the station. She called me up one day and gave me a lot of trouble because the public service announcements started out, "Mr. Employer." And see, I didn't think anything about that at that time because "Mr. Employer" was pretty much what was out there.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: Do you have an interest in radio or television broadcasting? If you have a normal voice and a genuine interest in becoming a professional broadcast announcer, disc jockey, newscaster or- [AUDIO/MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
JACKIE KELLY: America's first "All-Girl" station was interesting when there were no women in broadcasting, but there were beginning to be women in broadcasting. I think they figured the novelty was going to wear off. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER: “AGE OF AQUARIUS”]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: W.
MAN [ON-AIR]: H.
WOMAN [On-AIR]: E.
MAN [ON-AIR]: R.
JAINE RODACK: Everything changed. There were suddenly men at the station. They paired me with a gentleman named Dick Potter. And I played the fool and he was the intellectual one.
DICK POTTER: All right. You ready?
JAINE RODACK [ON-AIR]: Uh-huh. [AFFIRMATIVE]
DICK POTTER [ON-AIR]: Now, this is for elephant stew.
JAINE RODACK [ON-AIR]: Oh, come on, Dick. I thought you were serious.
WOMAN: As the women's movement came on and got strong and everything, WHER, they changed the call letters, put men on the air. I thought, well, isn't that strange? Here we are, women doing it, have been. Now they're going to – there's no more of that. And then they called it "WWEE Radio." W-W-E-E. [MUSIC: "AGE OF AQUARIUS"]
SAM PHILLIPS: It was not, I'm gonna tell you, it was not a novelty. WHER was an embryo because there wasn't anything else like it in the world. [LAUGHS] [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]
WOMAN [On-AIR]: We cordially invite you to stay tuned to WHER Radio, all day, every day, for sparkling, bright music, the latest worldwide news and up-to-the-minute local and regional news. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER, MUSIC OUT]
BOB GARFIELD: Our look back at WHER was excerpted from the radio documentary by the Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER] That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Megan Ryan, Tony Field, Jamie York and Mike Vuolo and edited - by Brooke. Dylan Keefe is our technical director and Jennifer Munson our engineer. We had help from Kevin Schlottmann and Katie Holt. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Katya Rogers is our senior producer and John Keefe our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media, from WNYC. I'm Brooke Gladstone.
BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield. (MUSIC TAG)(FUNDING CREDITS)
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