Issue #442 - Brother Tom Dooley makes his first appearance on the cover of the survey. He started off in the 9PM - Midnight shift before moving to the 3PM - 6PM slot around June 1974.
That lasted about a month before he was fired for reading a political statement on-the-air. He apparently wanted out of his contract and to that end he succeeded. He appeared on the survey four more times prior to his dismissal.
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11 comments:
So it was truly a case of "hang down your head, Tom Dooley." Any idea what the political statement was? Something anti-Nixon?
"Eres Tu" was one of the few foreign-language records to do well on the charts. "Sukiyaki" and "Domanique" come to mind. Others?
It was only a few years ago that I FINALLY heard the proper pronunciation of the Led Zeppelin song: "Jer-maicker." As in, from Jermaica. Wow. I always pronounced it like it was spelled, and others did to as far as I heard. NOW it makes sense!
"Tell Her She's Lovely" is a now-rare local hit that didn't do so well nationally.
Steve:
It was the afternoon that Richard Nixon announced his resignation as President of the United States....a few minutes after the announcement.
Tom Dooley back announced the Hues Corporation:
"K-H-J...Rock The Boat...well, we've all gotta do that once in a while. I believe that Richard Nixon, President of the United States and his associates should be investigated and tried in connection with the concept and execution of the political assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy and the attempted assassination of Governor George Wallace."
Then, he repeated it before going into a commercial break. Those were his last words on KHJ.
Oh...and don't the 2-color surveys just look CHEAP compared to the 4-color ones?
They do indeed look cheap. And it's no wonder Dooley was immediately let go.
By the way, I'm embarrassed to see my misspelling of Jamaica in the earlier comment.
The rest of the story has been commented over at Reelradio...apparently Dooley was offered a new position at another station he really wanted and that announcement enabled Dooley to break his KHJ contract, instead of the other station having to buy it out.
Paul:
With the internet, talk radio and cable TV, a stunt like that today would render you unhireable for quite some time and the offer Tom had in hand would have been withdrawn before he could get there.
Tell that to Don Imus.
(just stating objective fact)
Paul:
Imus was out of work for eight long months.
Survey erratum: "Heartbeat - It's A Lovebeat" by the De Franco Family says (22) for last week's position. It should have been (29).
I was at Tom's house later that afternoon. He had no other job offers that I know of. He had issues with KHJ management and he was always mad at Nixon. He drew the curtains that day thinking Tricky Dick might send someone to take HIM out. From there he lived in a tent on the Mississippi for awhile, then eased back into radio gigs here and there. Became a PD in Knoxville. Syndicated The AC Countdown out of Philly. Set up a production house in Dallas specializing in Christian programming. Passed away a few years ago.
That was the weirdest break I ever heard on Boss Radio. Nowadays we're used to insane conspiracy theories on the web, but Tom's rant was *really* off the wall. Never mind that it wasn't too likely that Nixon was responsible for every foul crime known to man, the idea you'd blow a gig at KHJ! I'm still dumfounded.
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