Let’s take a trip back to 1961, where On This Summer Day, July 24, legendary disc jockey Tom Shannon lit up the radio waves from Buffalo’s WKBW AM 1500, better known as “KB 15.” Today’s podcast is a recorded aircheck from that day, a day similar to all the others, except it’s that day we’re going to time travel to today. You’ll get a hint at what the “Tom Shannon Show” was like back then, and how local AM radio flavored many aspects of our daily life here in Buffalo.
“This aircheck, from July 24, 1961, gives you a small idea as to what the “Tom Shannon Show” sounded like. Also included are ads for S & H Greenstamps, Iroquois Beer, and a WKBW jingle.”
The Korean War was over, World War Two was long over; and it was Camelot in America; the Viet Nam War was only brewing its first pot of bad coffee; and a new morning America was up every day to the sounds of AM Radio. New cars, new houses, new appliances, particularly radio and TV sets, Sunday suits and American dreams of money, kids off to higher education, booster shots, and a Cold War Freedom Cellar in every basement were all highlights of the times. Life was good. Grand, even—reachable and laudable, with a new AM Radio Commercial every 60 seconds inbetween song bits reminding us so.
There were three choices for TV stations at the time: Channels 2, 4, & 7. Or, if you wanted radio, there was AM radio. So, if you were at your bar-b-que, or backyard hammock, your workbench, or on your job, in the car, or anywhere, you had only to choose from a handful of notable stations: your folks listened to WBEN and WGR—and kids ushering in new sounds listened to the big rivals WYSL and WKBW—that’s “KB Radio 15,” shaking in the Age of Rock and Roll, with Buffalo-to-the-world’s Tom Shannon!
We were Buffalo, USA, one of the Top 20 cities in North America, and our AM radio days were at their highlight of their success, with a few years to go before a mysteriously transforming FM and the extended media options transferred the AM crown from everyone’s attention. Other than essential morning news, sports, and weather, AM took a bit of a dive until the national syndicated “box store” DJ’s took up the horizon—from Rush Limbaugh, to Howard Stern and a host of shock jocks. But back then, it was local where you found your heroes.
In a couple years to come, the transistor radio would be invented and we’d carry radio sets run by battery—amazing! Radios were generally big, heavy, had plugs and hot internal tubes, like a TV set, that needed warming up; and when it did, there was music, news, personalities, and ads, and ads, and ads—lots of them by the minute, selling beer and sausage, cars and leather goods, trips to near and far. AM radio was both the marketplace and neighborhood time clock. And everybody knew what everybody else was listening to.
The world was different back then. It was pre-internet, pre-faxes, and pre-email. When there was more AM radio, there were more hammocks in America. I wonder how the hammock manufacturers are doing today? Probably not as swell as the early 60’s. A sunny day, a hammock, a cold one, and AM radio just seemed like Heaven. What we lose today are certain “flavors” of life. Time didn’t jump ahead as if never to stop gaining on itself until the early 80’s, when faxes were just coming into style—costing at first $2000-and-up, fax units still required some other fool you wanted to connect with to spend his $2000 to connect to you. And a few of us did. So we faxed, and saved a stamp and a day’s wait for a letter. Speed means a lot more every second now, it seems.
One of the flavors we miss is the local radio legend. Tom Shannon was one. Danny Nevereth was, too. Stan Roberts on WYSL , Clint Buehlman on WBEN, and Danny Nevereth “moved your fanny” on KB-15. Legends alive and revving every morning. Clint was for the old folk and young as well (you had to listen if Mom or Dad was driving), but Stan and Danny moved music and news and highlights and humor in a rollercoaster fast ride every morning. And Tom Shannon was on an every day ride to greater stardom, from Buffalo. He eventually moved to CKLW in Windsor-Detroit, which meant by its extra strong airwaves that folks could listen to him from half the country and parts of Mexico—technology was beautiful—the airwaves were lit, and we were part of it every moment.
In some photos, Tom Shannon has a cool fifties duck bill haircut, ready movie star. In others he’s got the cat’s canary grin and slick over like Michael Caine. He’s on top, a legend, with daily drives to rebuild the legend on that day’s magnificent, spontaneous, and yet well-prepared show of shows. There was a time when the “Tommy Shannon” theme song would go on to become one of Top 40’s all-time great instrumentals. Shannon wrote and produced the famed “Wild Weekend” by The Rockin’ Rebels.
Tom Shannon was back in Buffalo in later years of his career, working at WHTT-FM radio; he retired only recently in 2005. He’d been inducted into the Buffalo Broadcast Pioneers in 2001. Danny Nevereth still spirits about town, keeping fit, doing commercials now and again. And Stan Roberts loves his sailing and keeps up his various interests. But they each remember there was a time, when a hot summer day’s refreshment of choice was triggered like a Pavlovian thirst by their every mention. While we drove our cars, they drove our moods.
In the early 60’s and even beyond, for a time, the sound of Buffalo radio was headed up by legendary Disc Jockey talents who had names and personalities, agents who profiled and sold them, program directors and talent staffs who helped them fuel our day’s attention with their talent. And everyone listened, together.
You got to miss it. Not sure what replaced it was or is better; it just, well, replaced it. Cheers to you, heroes of Buffalo’s radio age. You’ve never, nor ever will, be replaced.
And cheers to more evenly paced times. Life wasn’t the rocket science it was soon to become. If the philosopher Descartes were to muse on the AM era, he might’ve summed up the spirit of daily life this way: “I think; therefore I AM (Radio KB-15!)”
If you wish to give us some ideas for future On This Day series pieces, simply email your idea(s) to wnysail@yahoo.com. Meantime, let’s go to the news, weather and sports, then a quick comic bit, followed by a 60-second “45” from Chubby Checkers, and then, an ad from one of our sponsors, Wardinski Sausage!
Bill Zimmermann
Bill runs Seven Seas Sailing school, and is a staunch waterfront activist. He is also heavily involved with preserving, maintaining, and promoting the South Buffalo Lighthouse. When Bill first started writing for Buffalo Rising, he wrote an article a day for 365 days - each article coincided with a significant historic event that happened in Buffalo on that same day.