Radio Daze

A newspaper column I wrote Wednesday (www.ledger-enquirer.com) about the death of radio old-timer Ben Parsons, inspired Nolan Murrah of Columbus to respond with a memory of Columbus Past:

I must say that you omitted one personality who entered the music scene my senior year at Columbus High School - Daddy Jule on WPNX. The number one records on the Hit Parade that year - 1952 - were "Cry" by Johnny Ray and "Harbor Lights" as I recall but Daddy Jule introduced us to a new kind of music on a black and red label - Atlantic Records. The lyrics to the love songs were not "If your sweetheart sends a letter of goodbye, it's no secret you'll feel better if you cry." They now became "Lookahere Saphronia, Have you got a dollar onya in the state of Califawnya, This I wanna know - I wanna little girl to be all mine in the winter time." And we loved it. And Daddy Jule mixed in a little off color humor like, "I believe in real estate - you ought to get a lot while you're young" - and we snickered and wondered how he could stay on the air with that obscenity - little did we know in the 50's what we were in for.

Nolan Murrah was remembering Columbus radio when he was in high school but most folks over a certain age remember their own special places on the dial.

My stations - AM, of course - were in Atlanta. They covered various genres and various generations. From gospel music at WCON to standards at WGST to rock at WQXI. We remember more than the stations. More than that, we remember the DJs that were on the air while we were growing up.

I remembered a host of them the other day when the brand new Georgia Radio Hall of Fame announced its first inductees. You can access the hall of fame at www.garhof.com

* There was Hank Morgan, "Hank the Prank," a crazy jock on WQXI and later the voice of the Atlanta Crackers. ("I'll tell you one thing: WOW!" was his catch phrase for home runs.)

* There was Patrick Aloysius Hughes, a WQXI personality that introduced me to bands like Ronnie Milsap and Mac Davis & the Zots.

* There was Bob McKee of WAOK, who had a teen club called "McKee's Beat" that was our first brush with nightlife.

* Then there was Skinny Bobby Harper. He moved around the dial because of off-color remarks that we loved. Skinny Bobby used to make early-morning phone calls to people in the news. When I wrote a front-page story in the Atlanta Constitution that said Johnny Majors WAS the new football coach at Georgia Tech, Harper called Mrs. Majors in Iowa and said he was with an Atlanta moving company that wanted their business. She hung up on him. Majors never came to Tech and Harper said the guy who wrote the story wouldn't be around long.

In 365 days, Harper laughed and wondered whatever happened to Richard Hyatt. I called him from Columbus and said I was the sports editor there. Next morning, he said that I had proved his point. After writing that incorrect story I had been banished to Columbus, Ga.

Will today's listeners have memories of radio when they get older? I wonder.