Al "Jazzbeaux" Collins was another KSFO/KGO guy. He was MC at the Louis Armstrong concert my Dad took our family to at the Berkeley Community Theater in 1964. It was a tour to support his hit Hello Dolly.
Louis live in Berlin, 1965...
In Ken Burns History of Jazz, my memory is that the narrator said there is a high note on a trumpet that the best players are lucky if they can hit it one time in a song. Louis Armstrong could hit that note 45 times in a song.
The Hello Dolly video points out that a master musician with a bad voice can still sing in perfect key (aka "carry a tune").
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Yeah, that was confusing. Don Sherwood was on KFRC way back in 1944 for a while, but was mostly on KSFO after that, so anybody posting here probably heard him on KSFO. And I don't remember him ever being referred to as "Dr. Don". They may have confused him with Dr. Don Rose, another local DJ, I think.
I used to listen to him religiously. I too listened to him while I was in bed. My parents made me go to bed early, lights out or else. For a while I read comic books under the sheets with a flashlight, but then I got a 4-tube radio and put it under the blankets, which I listened to under the blankets, with a pair of headphones from a B-17 bomber, given to me by a pilot cousin of my Dad's who flew 35 missions over Germany. One time it got so hot under the blankets that the plastic case melted and I nearly set fire to the bed.
Sherwood used to play the records of Red Blanchard, otherwise known as Nervous Norvous, singing great songs like "Transfusion", and "Ape Call".
One day, Sherwood announced that he said he had the solution for the commute hour jam at the Golden Gate Bridge. He asked, "All of you who are stalled in traffic trying to get on the bridge, open all your windows! Now turn up the volume on your car radio as high as it will go." And then he played a recording of a very loud police car siren.
He used to spend evenings in a bar on Judah Street in the Sunset. I used to pass by there a lot, but was not old enough to be allowed inside, and it was too cold outside to hangout for long and wait for an autograph.
We got KSFO loud and clear in Sacramento when I was growing up there. Sherwood had a morning show that started about the same time my sister and I left the house for school. My mother would drive us to school on her way to her job downtown. She thought Sherwood was hilarious and my sister and I got a laugh out of it too...at least it was better than listening to your mother. His program planted the image in our early teenage minds that San Francisco was a great place to be. We would both wind up there after college for various lengths of time.
San Francisco was a great place to be. Sadly, it is not great anymore. It is a popular place to want to live, which is reflected in the rents, and property prices.
Another "do you remember where you were when…" SF memory. My Dad was in the front seat driving and my Mom in the front passenger seat. My buddy and I (both 10 years old) were in the back seat and we were driving through Golden Gate Park listening to the Giants vs Dodgers game…..and then Marichal went after Roseboro with a bat. -August 22, 1965
*Koufax was pitching and he went into the fray unarmed to help a teammate.
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KSFO was the home of Cal football before KGO got the rights. Jim Lange used to be the involved with locker room interviews.
KSFO was "The Sound of the City" for many years, and one of the most famous jingle packages in the history of radio played on that theme. For those who, like me, can remember when KSFO OWNED the Bay Area listenership, Here is an approximately 11 minute recording of the "Sound of the City" jingles I just referred to. Absolutely the best ever done by any station, and place.
You may have to reset the red bar at the foot of this link to make sure it starts at the beginning. For some reason, it seems to start a few minutes into the recording. Just click on the red ball and move it all the way to the left. BTW, you will also hear the SF Giants jingles ("Bye Bye Baby") as you listen. Some of you will also remember the wonderful KSFO Christmas "madrigal" jingle that is included.
Besides Sherwood, KSFO had (at one time or another) Al "Jazzbeau" Collins, Jim Lange, Terry McGovern (later the morning man at KSAN), Dick McGarvin, Scott Beach, Jack Carney, Gene Nelson, Russ "The Moose" Syracuse (both Gene and Russ came over from KYA), Dan Sorkin, Carter B. Smith, and a number of characters sho lived in The City, and were real characters. Scott Beach, as an example, once led a kazoo night at a Giants game and was highly involved with various music organizations in San Francisco. McGarvin was in a jazz combo that played at various lace in the Bay Area. Sherwood was, simply, a legend. Al "Jazzbeau" Collins was legendary for his knowledge of and exposure of various jazz artists. BTW, Scott Beach was a well known visitor to Perry's on Union Street. KSFO found a way to actually make you feel like you were listening to San Francisco in everything they did. Known as "The World's Greatest Radio Station.......especially in San Francisco", they were as much a part of The City as Sourdough Bread, Fisherman's Wharf, Lefty O Doul's, Union Square and North Beach. At one time, it was like 9 out of 10 radio listeners would be listening to KSFO at any time. They just blew all the competition away in the ratings. Those were back in the days when The City was really great.
Later, KNBR gave them some competition as corporate types started trying to "improve" what couldn't be improved upon at KSFO. Ron Reynolds at KNBR discovered some of the things that had made KSFO so great and incorpoated them in KNBR while consultants and corporate "experts" started making KSFO more generic.Then, the Bay Area became dominated by KGO for a time.
When KGO took over the Cal Broadcasts, it seems to me it starrted with former 49er Monte Stickles being part of the braodcast team. Other notable Bay Area sportcasters who were involved with Cal football include Bud Foster, and Bob Fouts (Dan Fout's father).
KGO has remained a loyal braodcaster for the Bears for several decades now and I don't know if there is a station anywhere that has braodcast one college team longer than KGO has.
In 1967 the KYA Wonders basketball team played the Bishop O' Dowd varsity at the Oakland Auditorium. I was in attendance. I was a 7th grader at St. Paschal's and my sister was a senior at O' Dowd.
The Mojo Men performed their huge hit, Sit Down I Think I Love You, at half time. I think the song was #1, at least in the Bay Area, at the time.
*Years later I would learn that Steve Stills wrote the song for Buffalo Springfield, but the Mojo Men made it a hit.
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You & I have quite a bit in common. Same age. Similar upbringing - you attending St. Pascal's & me St. Mary's in WC. Did you play CYO bball? For 5 consecutive year's I was St. Mary's starting guard - 4th thru 8th grade. In 7th grade there was a bball tourney (1967) in Oakland & one of the games was St. Mary's vs St. Pascal's! If you played for your school ... one of those ironic OMG'S! Could you & I have guarded ea. other??
Oh and BTW - I remember vividly the minute the Dominican Dandy (my favorite Giant ever) went after Johnny Roseboro e/his bat. Dad & I were listening to the game on KSFO while working on my bike's flat tire. Within seconds after it started my dad cranked up the radio & we stood in the garage, frozen, staring at each other in shock listening to Russ Hodges.
Another "do you remember where you were when…" SF memory. My Dad was in the front seat driving and my Mom in the front passenger seat. My buddy and I (both 10 years old) were in the back seat and we were driving through Golden Gate Park listening to the Giants vs Dodgers game…..and then Marichal went after Roseboro with a bat. -August 22, 1965
*Koufax was pitching and he went into the fray unarmed to help a teammate.
I was in West Virginia, visiting my dad's side of the family and heard about it in the paper the next day. I was a huge Giants fan and Juan Marichal seemed like a nice guy, so I was trying to rationalize how a thing like that could happen. As the story went, Roseboro came really close to Marichal's head, when throwing the ball back to the pitcher (not to be making excuses... coulda killed him).
I remember Willie Mays trying to break it up. That might be him in the photo, at the far right.
Pretty cool ending to it all - the two became as close as best friends later on. John's forgiving side was huge. Marichal ended up being a pallbearer at Roseboro's funeral.
Yeah, I played CYO hoop at St. Paschal's. Mike Moynihan was our best player. He was a stud at O'Dowd too. He scored 24 points in the North/South Allstar Game. Some ranked O'Dowd #1 in the state until the Dragons ran into Cliff Poindexter and San Joaquin Memorial H.S.
I don't recall that game with St. Mary's WC (my kids graduated St. Mary's WC and played hoop there and at DLS and Carondelet).
When I was at Paschal's, Mike Phelp's coached St. Leo's was the best team. We finally beat them in a tourney at St. Elizabeth's. Kevin Hardy, a Niner at the time, handed out the trophies. I think I still have it. In those days you only got a trophy for winning something important. It meant something.
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Wow ... Story after story. My dad knew Mike Phelps during that time. He coached (my dad) the grade higher than ours each year. I of course ended up meeting Mike - getting to know him. And ... I was actually chosen as a "1st replacement" for the all-star game played at the coliseum arena in 1968.
Did you know Jim Slater (2 grades ahead of you)? I believe he played CYO at St. Mary's WC, he was good at Las Lomas, and made the freshman team at St. Mary's College. He transferred to Cal (didn't play hoop) and we were in a frat together. We both practiced law in Oakland. We played in a Sunday night hoop league at Del Valle in the early 80's (the Klenow brothers, who played at DLS, were on the team). Jim passed in 1989.
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YES I did know Jim! He was in a lot of p/u games I played in at LL. Along w/Bob Hagler ... who was all FAL his Jr. & Sr. years at LL. I went to LL 'cuz mom/dad did the no-no for Catholic parents back then - got divorced. Was final when I was in 7th grade. That combined w/being the only boy w/4 sisters huge reason why I majored in psych!
KSFO was the home of Cal football before KGO got the rights. Jim Lange used to be the involved with locker room interviews.
KSFO was "The Sound of the City" for many years, and one of the most famous jingle packages in the history of radio played on that theme. For those who, like me, can remember when KSFO OWNED the Bay Area listenership, Here is an approximately 11 minute recording of the "Sound of the City" jingles I just referred to. Absolutely the best ever done by any station, and place.
You may have to reset the red bar at the foot of this link to make sure it starts at the beginning. For some reason, it seems to start a few minutes into the recording. Just click on the red ball and move it all the way to the left. BTW, you will also hear the SF Giants jingles ("Bye Bye Baby") as you listen. Some of you will also remember the wonderful KSFO Christmas "madrigal" jingle that is included.
Besides Sherwood, KSFO had (at one time or another) Al "Jazzbeau" Collins, Jim Lange, Terry McGovern (later the morning man at KSAN), Dick McGarvin, Scott Beach, Jack Carney, Gene Nelson, Russ "The Moose" Syracuse (both Gene and Russ came over from KYA), Dan Sorkin, Carter B. Smith, and a number of characters sho lived in The City, and were real characters. Scott Beach, as an example, once led a kazoo night at a Giants game and was highly involved with various music organizations in San Francisco. McGarvin was in a jazz combo that played at various lace in the Bay Area. Sherwood was, simply, a legend. Al "Jazzbeau" Collins was legendary for his knowledge of and exposure of various jazz artists. BTW, Scott Beach was a well known visitor to Perry's on Union Street. KSFO found a way to actually make you feel like you were listening to San Francisco in everything they did. Known as "The World's Greatest Radio Station.......especially in San Francisco", they were as much a part of The City as Sourdough Bread, Fisherman's Wharf, Lefty O Doul's, Union Square and North Beach. At one time, it was like 9 out of 10 radio listeners would be listening to KSFO at any time. They just blew all the competition away in the ratings. Those were back in the days when The City was really great.
Later, KNBR gave them some competition as corporate types started trying to "improve" what couldn't be improved upon at KSFO. Ron Reynolds at KNBR discovered some of the things that had made KSFO so great and incorpoated them in KNBR while consultants and corporate "experts" started making KSFO more generic.Then, the Bay Area became dominated by KGO for a time.
When KGO took over the Cal Broadcasts, it seems to me it starrted with former 49er Monte Stickles being part of the braodcast team. Other notable Bay Area sportcasters who were involved with Cal football include Bud Foster, and Bob Fouts (Dan Fout's father).
KGO has remained a loyal braodcaster for the Bears for several decades now and I don't know if there is a station anywhere that has braodcast one college team longer than KGO has.
Thanks for posting that. Certainly remember those, particularly the "sounds of the city" themes. Late night studying at Cal, sometimes with a radio playing at low volume in the background when the work was less demanding. Those themes would come on at the station breaks and you would be reminded of just how late it was, and how much you had left to do.
Does anyone recall the intro that preceded the Cal football broadcasts... "From the heart of the golden west, California football is on the air"...? I believe that was from the late 50' into the early 60's and may have been on KSFO.
Out of the Past wrote: "Does anyone recall the intro that preceded the Cal football broadcasts... "From the heart of the golden west, California football is on the air"...? I believe that was from the late 50' into the early 60's and may have been on KSFO."
I don't recall that opening/intro, but it would make sense for it to be associated with KSFO because KSFO was part of the Golden West Radio network.
For those who possess or collect early Cal football programs ("The California Gridiron"), some of the programs from the early '60s have KSFO ads in them, some of which refer to their broadcasts of Cal football, as I recall.
I was headed to the store a couple of hours ago and so turned on what used to be KGO: The first word I heard was "butt", followed by "suck"/"sucks" maybe 10-15 times (not exaggerating), then one "ass", three "bleeping"s and a few "smacks" variations... all in 6-7 minutes.
On the way back from the store (everybody deserves a second chance), they had on some sort of advanced analytics expert, discussing aspects of the NFL that seemed to pertain to wagering.
What a first day for the new station! I guess they have done their homework and figure they are saving on production costs by simply subscribing to a national sports show, but who is actually going to listen to that crap?!? They bleeping suck!
But nobody listens to AM anymore. Sure we would if we wanted to listen to Starkey. But we could also do that on Sirius XM using our computer/tablet/phone/automotive entertainment center.
I'd be interested to see an Arbitron book. My initial reaction is "what audience?" Put another way, who under 54 actually listens to any AM radio at this point? Anyone with a smartphone can stream podcasts and quite a lot of live programming for free, and get music services like Spotify or Prime Music for a fairly modest fee.
I loved KGO in its day, and the very impressive signal could reach from Vancouver to Tijuana (I've heard tell of people picking it up in Hawaii). But topical local talk died in the 90s with the rise of all-politics talk and nationally syndicated sports talk.
There are still more African American's in that KGO photo than in Trump's cabinet. Same for hispanics.
Trump didn't have 39 cabinet members, nor did he have a BERNIE WARD!!
Nope.
Trump had 24 in his Cabinet and only one of them was African American, Dr. Ben Carson. He's the guy that Trump put in charge of HUD and who had no clue about what an REO property was.
He thought Congresswoman Katie Thompson had said "Oreo".
Because you know.... Trump only hires the BEST people!
I subscribe to XM but some people don't (I guess there is a streaming service that broadcasts the games too)
But XM does not carry the post game show.I like to listen to the post game as I'm driving home from the game
SoFlaBear said:
But nobody listens to AM anymore. Sure we would if we wanted to listen to Starkey. But we could also do that on Sirius XM using our computer/tablet/phone/automotive entertainment center.
I don't know if you are being serious or facetious. As far as I know, the only reason AM was still being put in vehicles was the quaint notion the FCC has that those stations would be the source of "official information" in an emergency. But smartphones get the EBS signals now, and in a local crisis ( always weather related) I stream local TV on my phone.
I think it won't be super long until they don't come with FM either. I keep wondering if the wireless providers will go after that the way they went after the TV bandwidth.
