Nov. 28, 1970: WYSL-FM becomes WPHD

 

Here’s one of those pivotal moments in the evolution of Buffalo radio – when WYSL-FM stopped being the stepchild of the AM station and began emerging as the first commercially successful FM rock station in town. The program hosts in the accompanying photo were hippie household names – John Farrell, Kurt Farber, Larry Rakow, Jack Robinson, David Cahn and Jeff Lubick. The most celebrated of WPHD jocks, Jim Santella, would arrive later.

Of course, this being radio, everybody moved on. In 1972, Billboard magazine reported that Jack Robinson was being promoted to program director for an FM progressive rock station in Dallas.

Lubick succeeded Robinson as program director, but it was promotion-minded John McGhan, who came next, who took it to its highest level. A new owner arrived in 1974, abandoned the progressive format and changed the call letters back to WYSL-FM. McGhan moved up the block on Franklin Street to WGRQ-FM and turned it into powerhouse 97 Rock.

 And let’s not overlook John Farrell. Notable for his deep voice, he went on to earn a first-class engineer’s license and did technical work as well as air shifts at Buffalo’s subsequent progressive stations, WBUF-FM and WZIR-FM. When he died in 2013, colleague Pat Feldballe recalled: “He liked overnights. It suited his personality. … He was very laid-back, not hype-y, and his humor was very dry.” 

Nov. 28, 1970 

FM Rock DJ’s –

Like the Music,

And Convey Ideas 

“You realize that what’s true today may not necessarily be true next week,” WYSL-FM program director Jack Robinson was saying last Saturday.

He was in the middle of a long search through roommate and fellow FM disc jockey Jeff Lubick’s voluminous record collection to prove or disprove something about the Moody Blues.

Jeff, oddly, didn’t have the right album. Jack had to run upstairs and borrow it. Oh yes, that song. We’ve heard it on your station, Jack.

“Timothy Leary’s dead. No, he’s just on the outside looking in,” the Moodies chanted. Now that’s still true.

* * *

CONSIDERING how fast WYSL-FM has evolved, the truth about the station can be downright temporary.

Two years ago, it was painfully amateurish. One year ago, it wasn’t yet playing “progressive rock” 24 hours a day. Two months ago, it wasn’t stereo.

Come Monday, it won’t even be WYSL-FM any more. It’ll be WPHD. PhD, like a doctor’s degree on your FM dial. Get it?

* * *

A HIPPIE newspaper in Toronto, commenting last summer on how pervasive the youthful “alternative culture” is getting these days, pointed out with Toronto snobbery that “even Buffalo has an underground rock station.” Even Buffalo.

Underground rock stations are as different from ground-level rock stations as Woodstock was from a high school dance. For the Woodstock Nation, an underground station is a cultural treasure, the answer to a prayer.

It all has to do with the music. The music that brought Woodstock together. Jack Robinson explains:

“The main difference is that people in progressive rock radio are there not because they want to be on radio, but because they like the music and want to communicate some ideas. When somebody comes to me and says he wants a job because he wants to be on radio, I don’t want him. You’ve got to be into the music.”

* * *

AS RECENTLY as 1967, there wasn’t much for a self-respecting underground rock station to play. “Sgt. Pepper,” first albums by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane. Now about 100 potentially appropriate records come into WYSL-FM every week.

FM is even making stars. James Taylor was big on FM months before “Fire and Rain.” Melanie, Free, Joni Mitchell, Grand Funk Railroad and Joe Cocker all gained approval via FM before AM picked them up.

WYSL-FM works from a basic playlist of 50 new albums, derived mostly from national listings and a newsletter called “The Walrus,” which tells who’s playing what and what’s getting reaction across the country.

“AM goes for familiarity,” Jack explains. “We go for variety. Progressive rock is derived from every type of music – R&B, soul, country, blues, classical, jazz, electronic music, spoken word. We play all of them.”

* * *

IN THE LOBBY of WYSL’s new Franklin Avenue headquarters, there’s a color photograph of oilman Barton McLendon, father of Gordon McLendon, who owns WYSL and six other stations from here to Dallas. In his hand is a rolled-up Wall Street Journal.

“We had a meeting of all the FM jocks the other day,” Jack says over a sandwich and a lemon phosphate in an Allentown soda shop, “and it really blew my mind. We were in (station manager) Larry Levite’s class office. Leather couch and everything.

“I looked around and there’s eight freaks, blue jeans with stars on them, hair everywhere, all slouching around. And there’s Levite there in his coat and tie.

“But Levite’s really a good guy. He feels that FM radio is the coming thing. There’s so much more flexibility, so much more room to grow.”

Jack claims that WYSL-FM already has the biggest audience of all Buffalo FM stations. Seven percent of all AM and FM listeners after 7 p.m., four percent afternoons, two percent in the mornings.

* * *

“THERE’S NO such thing any more as ‘underground radio,’” Jack says as he wheels his freshly-purchased foreign car down Elmwood Avenue.

“Every station that started out to be a pertinent member of the community has copped out and gone commercial. KSAN in San Francisco. WNEW in New York. CHUM in Toronto. They’ve all become exactly what Top 40 radio is – a little piece of pop culture, something to keep you occupied.

“The difference here is that we’re still trying. I think there’s a chance that we can make money and at the same time give something to our audience that will be of importance.”

* * *

“PLANS?” JACK asks as his girlfriend Judy brings coffee over. “I would like to – I don’t know how to word it – just expand out and include an entire community that can relate to us and we can relate to them.

“There IS a way to put across progressive music that’s better than any other way. Maybe it’s that soft, subversive personality you were talking about.

“It’s reality radio. Every song we play isn’t the greatest song, every day isn’t the greatest day. We try to be honest, never lie to anybody. Except once.

“We tried to lie with Emmit Rhodes. For a day, we were going to tell people he was the new Beatles album. It was right after the election and the next day we were going to say it was a hoax and say: ‘Think about the advertisements you heard before the election. Were they giving you the straight facts?’

“But it didn’t work out. Our heart wasn’t in it enough to pull the lie off all the way.”

“Well,” says Judy, “if FM radio isn’t your friend, who is?”

The box/sidebar:

WYSL-FM = WPHD

 WYSL-FM will become WPHD Monday for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with identity.

Program director Jack Robinson, who was secretly hoping it would be called WTHC, says the new name will sharpen distinctions between AM and FM, thereby giving more accurate figures from the rating services.

* * *

THERE’LL STILL be the same 10-minute blocks of music on either side of station breaks and every-other-hour news. And still only eight minutes of commercials an hour.

And most likely the same youthful exuberance that one morning about 3:30 inspired Jeff Lubick and Kurt Farber to ask the world to tell them if there were any good restaurants open. Chocolate éclairs they wanted to go get.

* * *

JACK EXPLAINS: “First, we want music. Second, personality. Third, information, news, etc., presented in a way that doesn’t offend our audience. Four, telephone communications to bring people into our system so they are ego-involved in it. Five, to lead in things that are important to our audience. Like concerts and interviews.

“I feel very close to the people who listen to the station,” he adds. “You see, we’re part of the third world. We’re not radio announcers. We’re freaks like anybody else.”