Having grown up in LA
I have encountered a celeb or two here and there in my lifespan...
There has been an occasional "Brush of Greatness"
now and again that I still recall to this day...
This one particular "Brush of Greatness"
happened in the late 60's one hot Summer afternoon...
I was spending those fun filled carefree Summer months working my ass off for nearly no dough being the PD at a local radio station and holding down a weekday DJ gig in the mid afternoon hours...
Now this station was very unique...
NO ONE LISTENED to it...
Seriously, we were smack dab in the middle of the San Fernando Valley and had just about NO listeners...
Hell, even my parents couldn't get the signal over in Northridge
at the family house...
Seems they put the tower on the top of the thirteen story
Panorama Towers in Panorama City...
Good idea, right?
Panorama City is in the middle of the Valley and sits at just about the lowest elevation in the area...Hence our "line of sight" FM signal blasted against the side of the Valley and made for pretty rotten FM listening in cars and homes...
Well, what did I care...I was on the radio and doing my DJ thing...
Also, this station had literally NO staff...
The sales guy, Mr. Brinkmeyer, send his copy over and put it under the door after hours...I typed the program log...
Things were so bad they even took out all the phones in the office...
Oh, they did have one of those NO dial phones for a while but someone learned how to unscrew it and make it work and they rang up some long distance calls (remember those?) and that phone departed from the scene...
With the transmitter in a closet off the studio it made for a cozy atmosphere...Weekends the building shut off the AC and many times we did our shows in bathing suits...I recall doing one in my skives once...
This was the three thousand watt FM powerhouse where I was spinnin' those three in a row MOR tunes that fine Summer day...
This was KVFM...
There was no secretary...There was NO ONE in the place expect the DJ and we kept the door unlocked and every once in a while someone would wander on in...Most times they just wanted to see what at radio station looked like (recall when folks did that)...
Most times they split in just a few minutes as we did not have an impressive looking control room set up...Back to spinning those Andy Williams and Lawrence Welk tunes...
I am cueing up a song and I look up and see this fellow who has a record album tucked under his arm...He had slicked back pomade hair and was a tad on the chubby side...
"Hi, I'm appearing at a club over in Granada Hills tonight
and can I get on the radio and chat with you about it?"
I must have looked like the DJ in the headlights
because he asked once again if he could get on air...
I finally retorted,."Who are you?"
"Bo Diddley my man.", he chimed back...
Now, I vaguely remember hearing that name once or twice
but we did not even begin to play that type of music on good old KVFM...
But what the hell...
He came in the door...
Took the elevator to the 11th floor and had made all that effort...
The very least I could do was chat him up for a bit...
"Sure", I snapped back..."Have a seat"...
I grabbed the other mic that was on the short stand under the counter...
I placed it in front of him and he leaned in and took the record
out of the album cover and handed it to me...
"Can we play a cut or two from my album", he asked...
Well, NO ONE was listening...
"Sure, not a problem"...
I cued up the tune but first I wanted to let our NON listening audience know who was with me in the studio...
Bo proceeded to really pitch his PA at that club and talked a bit about what folks could expect if they caught his show that evening...
Then I started TT #2 and the Bo Diddley BEAT
blasted out of the monitors in the KVFM studio...
Breaking the format,
I settled back a bit and relished that I had a REAL rocker and roller with me on air...
Years later I saw Bo "LIVE" several times
and I was totally blown away with his act...
He was the DIDDLEY beat!
And I will always treasure the memory of spinning the great Bo Diddley
on KVFM that warm Summer afternoon...
