Bill Crisp Interview

Bill Crisp was a big part of Louisville Top 40 radio in the 1960s, first as the morning man for WKLO, and then as the morning man (and later PD) for WAKY. In this February 2005 interview with John Quincy, Bill talks about both stations, some of the on-air people he worked with, and what happened after he left WAKY.

Okay, we're talking to Bill Crisp, who was a program director and morning guy at WAKY in Louisville back in the 60s, also worked for WKLO before that. Now tell me exactly when you were at WAKY.

I have not kept dates very well, but I know I worked there in 1965. I thought I was there until 69, but apparently, I must have left there just before 69.

All right, now before you came to Louisville, what kind of radio gigs did you have before that?

Well, before Louisville I was at WAYS in Charlotte, North Carolina, and before that I was at WKGN in Knoxville.

So, you worked at some pretty decent radio stations.

Yeah, yeah, pretty much, but mostly small market.

All right, now what brought you to Louisville and WKLO? Was that your first Louisville gig?

Yeah, Barney Groven, who was the program director there then, came through Charlotte one day and called me. And he said, I just heard you on WAYS radio and I want to ask you a question.

And I said, okay. And he said, why aren't you on my radio station? And I said, I don't know. And he said, how about if I pay you money? And I said, that'll work.

So that's how I came to Louisville.

And did you go straight to mornings at KLO?

Yeah, I came straight to KLO to do mornings. That was in 1964.

Okay, and how long were you at WKLO?

Just about 15 months.

Okay, and why'd you leave?

They lied to me. They told me that if I got the ratings up in the morning (they were very loaded commercially, didn't play a lot of records) but they said if I got the numbers up, I would get a raise immediately. And in any event, I would get a raise after six months.

Well, the first book came out and I had beaten WAKY. And that had never been done before. And they said, we can't give you a raise right now.

And then six months went by and they said they couldn't give me a raise then. So, when Jim Brand at WAKY approached me and made me an offer, I said yes. So, I left.

Now, was the guy that brought you on to WKLO there the whole time as program director? Because I know Terrell Metheny (Mitch Michael) was there during the mid-'60s, too.

That was Barney Groven. No, Barney left and then Mitch Michael came in about half the time when I was there. 

And he was a trip. He was a great program director.

Why so?

He brought the station to number one. 

And he did it in a very short period of time. And he did it with a very tight format. And they cut out a lot of commercials, played a lot of records, and ran a lot of great contests.

Okay, so you went to WAKY and Jim Brand hired you, I guess, to do mornings?

Yes.

Was that a pretty big deal in the market for you to go from one Top 40 station to another? I mean, was there a buzz at the time that you remember that Bill Crisp is changing radio stations?

Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, WKLO was going to sue me.

They thought they had a radius contract. Then they found out later they didn't have a radius contract. So they dropped the suit.

All right, so you're at WAKY. You go in and do mornings. So, what was working at WAKY like back in the 60s?

Oh, it was like magic.

It was just a great, fun place to work. It always was. As I was told, it had always been a lot of fun.

Whereas KLO was very much like working in a concentration camp. Maybe John Randolph has spoken of that. I don't know.

I never heard of anybody leaving WAKY and going to KLO.

Well, it was nice to be in Louisville with two strong Top 40 radio stations at the time, with WAKY and KLO both duking it out. You know, I suppose one book, one would be number one, and then they would take it back and forth back in the 60s and 70s, and that made them both great radio stations.

Well, the best I ever did against Bill Bailey, I think, was tied him, as I recall. Bill pretty much owned the market.  

Yeah, he was a pretty big deal once he came to Louisville at KLO, wasn't he?  

Yeah, he owned that town, yeah, no doubt about it.

So, what was the Bill Crisp morning show like at WAKY?  

I really don't know how to describe it.

I would say just about anything. Back in those days, you could, within the bounds of propriety, that is. We didn't do much blue air.

I really wouldn't know how to describe my show.

Well, luckily, we have an aircheck on the site where people can go and listen, and we have a tape of you from 1967. Who are some of the other folks that you work with at WAKY, besides Jim Brand?

One other guy that came aboard with us when I was there was Dude Walker. 

I hired him while I was there, along with Weird Beard and Tom Dooley. Tom was probably crazy. I think Tom was pretty much a wack job.

I guess when Jim Brand became national program director for LIN Broadcasting, you got the job as PD, right?

Right.

Now, what was it like competing against KLO? Did you think you had any advantage from having worked there before, programming against KLO?

We made a run at them, but we were so heavily commercial that it was kind of hard to do. Then we had a management change. 

Joel Thrope was made general manager of the chain of LIN Broadcasting. Then new management started bringing in consultants. I don't know if you've had any dealings with any of those. 

And we had several of those, which sort of took things out of my hands. So, it was kind of a rough place to program for a while.

Now, why did you leave WAKY?

I was fired.

Tell us about that.

Well, the ratings certainly were down, and management was searching for a way to get them back. And there was actually, at that time, just no way to do it.

And the one thing that finally brought the ratings back to WAKY, as far as I know, was the fact that Mitch Michael left town and a fellow by the name of Wiglesworth became program director of WKLO. And he didn't fare too well in the job. So, they just sort of handed it to WAKY.

Do you have any stories or memories of WAKY, cool things that happened there or promotions you did that you were proud of?

Well, I remember a hundred things, you know, that happened.

But one thing that stands out in my mind was the first time John Randolph ever had to fire somebody. I was out on a talent search when I hired Dude Walker. I went to Tennessee, where I found him.

I was calling in every day and talking to John Randolph. I called in one day, and Randolph said, I've got a problem. Tom Dooley won't do his production.

You see, we had an air shift, and we had a production shift. And he says, Tom Dooley won't do his production if you're not here. And I said, I don't understand that.

I said, just tell him to do his production. He said, I told him, and he won't do it. And I said, well, when he comes in tomorrow, tell him again.

And he says, well, what do I do if he don't do it tomorrow? And I said, fire him. So, he did.

Now, did you bring Johnny Randolph over from KLO?

Yeah.

Randolph was at KLO as a music director and a sort of a part-time swing disc jockey. He wasn't a full-time jock, but he was a very good music man. And I brought him over as music man and evening disc jockey.

I don't know if you know this about John, but John is tone deaf. He can't carry a tune, but he did it all with mathematics. It was all just an arithmetical certainty to him.

And the way he could put together a playlist was just damn near perfection.

Do you remember the jingles you were running at WAKY when you were there?

Oh, yeah. I remember one set especially when Tom Dooley joined us.

I went to Dallas and had a set done by Tom Merriman's organization out there. And they were acapella keyed jingles. The last note of the jingle would be in the same key as the song that you were playing, which was a bit complicated, unless you had somebody aboard who could deal with that.

And fortunately, Tom Dooley was quite a good musician. And he would come in every week with his guitar and sit back there and key all the records with the appropriate jingle so you'd know which jingle to play before the record. And that worked out pretty good.

When we lost Dooley, I don't remember what we did.

Somebody told me that Weird Beard was a musician, too, and he helped you with that.

I don't remember that, but that's very possible.

Now tell me about Weird Beard. What was Weird Beard like to work with?

He was a very talented but a very quiet kid. He was at another local station there, WINN, and he used to visit us quite often.

And then finally we hired him.

That was a good decision.

Yep. He was there, I guess, for some time after I left.

What about Dude Walker?

Dude Walker was a good guy. I brought him up from Tennessee.

He had a child at that time who had quite a few medical problems, and he was concerned about moving to make sure he could get proper medical treatment. But when he got those issues resolved, he came aboard and did a great job.

Farrell Smith was another one. Farrell came to us from WKLO. Before that, he had been at WABC in New York. I fired him at WAKY for the same reason they fired him at WABC in New York.

And what's that?

Reading on the air. He would read and lose himself in the book and forget that a record was running out. And that happened a number of times.

I just don't think he was terribly excited about being at this job.

He was part Indian, too, wasn't he?

I think he was full-blooded Cherokee, and he was also a full colonel in the Army, and kind of a strange character. I don't think he was ever a very gung-ho disc jockey.

I think he got where he got in all those years because of the fantastic voice he had. To work at WABC in those days, you had to have a big, big voice.

Bill, why do you think that WAKY is so fondly remembered by people today, not only people who grew up in Louisville and the southern Indiana area, but also people who are students of great Top 40 radio? Why do you think that WAKY, in the 60s and 70s, was one of the best radio stations, Top 40-wise, in the country?

It was just crazy.

It was zany, and it didn't make any difference what time you turned your radio on. You knew that there was always going to be something a bit goofy. And it started from day one, when they first started the format, back long before I got there.

They signed on and played that ridiculous Purple People Eater or something like that for 24 hours and never looked back. I mean, it just went on and on and on. So that's the only thing I can attribute it to.

It was very much like the old KFWB in Los Angeles. It was patterned pretty much on that format or lack of format. I remember Barney Groven, the old program director of WKLO, telling me one time that the great secret to his format was that there was no format.

You did pretty much what you wanted to do.

Was that true?

Yeah, pretty much. And then when Mitch Michael came to town, it got very tight.

He told you how to tell the time. He told you how to do the weather. And everything was pretty much cookie cutter.

Must have worked.

It did. It did.

Well, mainly, I think, was because he played more music. And I think that's what people wanted to hear.

Yeah, more music always wins. If you can get the more music image with a music-intensive radio station, you're pretty much always going to be victorious.

And that's a hard battle to fight when you've got a sales department. And we had a very good sales department.

They could sell you your own stuff, you know.

Now, when you got blown out at WAKY, where did you go then?

I went to WLAP.

And what years were you at WLAP?

Well, I went there in...

69, I guess.

Yeah, right around that time, yeah.

And how long were you there?

I was there until early to mid-70s, it seems. I haven't kept records on that stuff.

And then I did television at WTVQ. Were you [in Lexington] then?

Yes, I was.

Yeah, I did television news there.

And I got that job on the strength of the fact that I had done a talk show at WLAP. Then I left TVQ in 75 to come to Delaware. And I went into business with a couple of other guys, and we had a couple of small radio stations.

And that's what I did until I hung it up.

So. you're retired now. When did you retire?

I retired in, I think it was, 93.

I had a couple of bypass operations. And two years ago, I had an abdominal aortic aneurysm that ruptured. And I don't think you're supposed to live through that, but I did.

And I was in a coma for the better part of a month.

Well, it sounds like you're in pretty good shape now. Are you able to get around okay?

Yeah, I get around okay, yeah. I live alone.

Any last thoughts about WAKY or Louisville or your time in radio?

I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I don't know how to express it. I was a lot younger then.

And, you know, I was taller too.