[This is the forward written by Evan Haning for my eBook.]

For convenience, we’ll call it “youth culture,” and it crashed over us, wave after wave: beatniks, rock and roll, folk, protest music, the British invasion, hippies, political protest, recreational drug use, the psychedelic sound, pop art, acid rock, heavy metal, disco. These waves were disorienting, their intensity unrelenting. But as we young swimmers bobbed and tried to keep our heads above water, others were surfing the waves. Masterfully riding each swell, they seemed perfectly at ease, in this tsunami of change.

These Silver Surfers, disc jockeys, were members of a profession that has disappeared, for all practical purposes, and it is very difficult to even describe its appeal to anyone who grew up without them.

But let’s try.

As Woody describes in this book, it is hard to imagine a world where music was not instantly available on demand. The first place most of us heard a new song was on the radio, and the only way to get a copy of it was to buy it at a record store. There was no YouTube, no Pandora.

It was also possible, if you had access to a tape recorder, to put the mike next to a radio and let it roll. If you were lucky, the song you wanted might be played. But even if it was, the quality would be bad, and the first ten seconds would be marred by a jingle and a disc jockey chattering about the time and temperature.

Remember, it wasn’t until recently that copies of all kinds were hard to obtain. You used carbon paper to keep copies of high school book reports. To get copies of a photograph for family and friends, the developer at the drug store would need the negative.

So copies of all kinds were hard to duplicate, whether texts, images or sounds. Originals had more value then, before the digital revolution made most content easily reproducible.

As Woody well describes in Neon Fun Jungle: Quest for Adventure in Hollywood Rock and Roll Radio, hearing new songs was not one lazy click away, as it is now. The main source for new music was radio, specifically the stations teenagers listened to. Because they were few in number, they had enormous power over which records were heard and bought. And their audiences were loyal.

Top disc jockeys in major cities enjoyed a celebrity comparable to that of rock stars. When I went to work at KRLA in 1973, the awe was tailing out (sadly for me!), but the stories I heard were amazing.

KRLA was a 50,000-watt powerhouse (and competitor of Drake-Chenault’s blockbuster KHJ, of which you’ll soon learn more in Woody’s account) located on the grounds of Pasadena’s Huntington-Sheraton Hotel.

The staff told me that as many as 300 teenagers would crowd the lobby and parking lot—sometimes as late as midnight—hoping to see the jocks or visiting musicians.

Disc jockeys were often encouraged to show up for work during the last record played by their predecessor, and to leave during their last record, to avoid being mobbed by the kids.

Super groups such as The Beach Boys would arrive at KRLA and KHJ in a limousine to hand-deliver their latest single. Same as the kids, the jocks were important them.

Woody worked with two of the most influential radio personalities in the neon fun jungle that is Los Angeles, Robert W. Morgan and the Real Don Steele. These two men were arguably the best Top 40 disc jockeys ever on the air, anywhere.

There were other “greats and near-greats,” of course: Wolfman Jack, Dave Hull “the Hullaballooer,” Johnny Hayes, Charlie Tuna, the “Master Blaster,” Bill Balance, Gary Owens, and more in Los Angeles.

San Francisco, New York and other cities were home to other legends: Johnny Holliday, Dr. Don Rose, Cousin Brucie, Don Imus, Murray the K, Dick Biondi and Jimmy O’Neal, among them.

But this book is a personal memoir whose heart and soul is deeply connected to the adventurous rock and roll radio programming created, perfected and executed nearly 50 years ago by Bill Drake and Gene Chenault, and Woody is very well positioned to tell that story.

He and I started in radio more or less at the same time, in San Luis Obispo, California, where Woody grew up. We worked at KVEC, a small but locally important station that provided morning and afternoon news blocks, local college sports, and music. The format was called MOR for middle-of-the-road or “Chicken rock,” which mixed softer Top 40 hits with adult standards. Think Tony Bennett and the Bee Gees.

Like most young disc jockeys, we loved what we were doing, but didn’t want to do it too long in this particular town. Our mail was delivered locally, but our heads, hearts and futures were in Los Angeles.

I got there before Woody, landing a spot on KRLA, a station I loved, which had long been around. KRLA, the Big 11-10 had been home to “Emperor Bob” Hudson, Dave Hull, Bob Eubanks, Johnny Hayes, Casey Kasem (later host of American Top 40), and a satirical news team called The Credibility Gap, that was a precursor to Saturday Night Live). It featured Harry Shearer, David L. Lander, Lew Irwin and others.

But by the time I arrived, KRLA was practically vacant. Johnny Hayes and I were on tape, the only two voices on the station, heard around the clock. We aired one 30-second Sears commercial per day at around 4:50 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Such was my first professional engagement in the neon fun jungle.

Although I found work in Los Angeles first, Woody was lucky enough to land among Top 40 radio’s performing and programming royalty. He was also lucky enough to have the observational intelligence and wit to understand the importance of what he saw, to appreciate and preserve it.

The broadcast world Woody writes about no longer exists, of course. Howard Stern has no need to race from his studio to a waiting car. There are no teenagers crowding the parking lot outside XM/Sirius.

In fact, disc jockeys, as such no longer exist. There are radio personalities and talk show hosts, but apparently there is no longer any business need for cultural gatekeepers—Boss Jocks, Good Guys, what Bill Drake described as “hip older brothers” to introduce new songs, generate excitement, bestow “validation” on teenagers, and do whatever else they did.

The job description may be gone, but many of the jocks that were intelligent and flexible enough to adapt are still broadcasting. Don Imus and Robert W. Morgan became talk show hosts. The multi-talented Johnny Holliday is the play-by-play voice of University of Maryland basketball and football, and a sportscaster on national network radio and television.

After careers in music, talk radio and freelance voiceover work, I’m now an anchor and reporter with Washington, DC’s number one radio station, WTOP. It is also the number one moneymaking radio station in the US, just named Legendary Station of the Year, winner of numerous Edward R. Murrow and Marconi Awards, and winner of Best Radio News Website in America. Sorry to toot WTOP’s horn so loudly, but that’s a habit I picked up from listening to KHJ as a teenager: “Thank YOU for making US … number ONE!”

Enjoy Woody’s story. And if you are occasionally puzzled by his enthusiasm, try to use your imagination. Think of what it would be like if the music you wanted to hear was only available on two or three places on a radio dial.

Imagine a high school classroom with a magazine photo of the Beatles taped to the door. A teacher’s handwritten message at the top of the picture warns, “Haircuts for failure? See Below!”

On some school mornings you see a vice-principal with a ruler measuring a boy’s hair to see if it touches his collar. If it does, his parents will be called to take him home until he’s had a haircut.

And on Friday afternoon you and your buddies pile into a friends’ car, turn on the radio, which warms up in a few seconds, and crank it up to hear …

“It’s THREE O’CLOCK in Boss Angeles, with ME! The REAL DON STEELE on a FRACTIOUS FRIDAY! It’s a GOLDEN WEEKEND, baby … an we’re (unintelligible) as we head out on our QUEST for ADVENTURE into the NEON FUN JUNGLE! (garbled) … MERCY, baby!

And the Beatles sing:

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
Nothing you can see that isn’t shown.
Nowhere you can be this isn’t where you’re meant to be.
It’s easy.

Evan Haning
Washington, DC
November 2011