Curtis J. Johnson sits down with Twin Cities Radio Airchecks website creator, Rick Burnett to discuss his career in radio, starting from high-school with concentration on his work at WDGY in the late 1960's as a 20/20 newsman. Curt discusses his early career and talks about his time at WDGY and shares some stories about the people he worked with during his career. You will hear Curt share stories on WDGY personalities, including Jim Dandy, Rich Holter, George Young and others.
Unfortunately, there is a short period of time with lower quality sound, which is corrected quickly. However, you can still hear what is being discussed and the sound for the WDGY portion of the interview is unaffected.
(Posted 8-27-18)
WCCO-FM - Sven Skarnasdaag Stories Number 1-3
This is the first of six files that contain Sven stories from when he was reporting from outstade Minnesot for Morries Inports (now Morries Automotive Group). Sven's jokes always made you smurk. WCCO's Carl Lensgrad was the voice of Sven
WCCO- FM Sven Skarnasdaag Smorgasbord of Stories 4-6
Just when you thought you had enough, there is more. Carl Lensgraf did the voice of Sven and other characters included Stella Sagwell. Sven traveled the backroads of Minnesota offering his daily humor.
Not sure how I came accross this recording. I assume George sent it to me a while back, as I just found it on a old external hard drive I had not pluged into a computer for years. George does his version of undgerouund style radio as broadcast in 1970. A little different from KQRS today.
Tony Glover hosted KDWB's Underground Show that ran six nights per week following Rob Sherwood's. Tony started off each show at midnight with Procol Harum's song, Repent Walpurgis.
Scott Gerr, a young St. Paul student of Highland Park High, did an interview with Tony Glover for his school's radio/TV club. Scott loved the underground radio format and was interested in pursuing a radio career, which he later did after graduation. Scott asked Tony a lot of questions on how to get into the business.
Tony did his best to answers Scott's questions. Tony sounds low key on this interview, which was the same way he presented himself on his show. Unfortunately, I do not have an aircheck of Tony to post on the site. Near the end of the interview, Tony shares with Scott that he did not know how much longer he could do a six night a week show.
Glover was a performing musician in the early 1960's, prior to his show on KDWB. His career includes recording and touring with a folk-blues trio, Koerner, Ray & Glover. He as also authored books on harmonica instruction, and music critic articles for diverse publications, including Rolling Stone. You can see more information on Tony at his web site at: mwt,net
John recently sent a few airchecks from way back in 1965. One is posted here and several more will be posted soon. When Franklin Hobbs was having a day off or on vacation, John Sewall was broadcasting from "The Station That Serves The Nation." This was a time when the phrase "Clear Channel" did not refer to a broacasting conglomerate, but meant that the freaquency used by WCCO at 830 Khz was clear of other stations and you could hear WCCO across the nation.
You will hear John tell you the latest news and weather. John will also mix in the Hobbs' House music with a recorded (transcription on disk) Franklin Hobbs commercial, a Grain Belt Beer commercial, and other announcements from the Mid 60's.
Franklin Hobbs' Last show on WCCO can be heard on this site. It is on the WCCO 830 page.
Aditional Aircheks of John Sewall can be accessed by clicking HERE
Contributed by John Sewall, Duluth, Minnesota. Posted 12/24/2014
John Sewall on cover of WMMR 10th Anniversary publication (late 1950's). WMMR was a carrier current station broadcasting to the University of Minnesota campus. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE
More recent photo of John Sewall. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE
John Sewall's 'The Good Old Days Of Radio"
Note from Rick Burnett:
I had the pleasure of having a long breakfast with John Sewall at Perkins Restaurant just after Christmas 2014. We talked about the old radio days and I found that John had a very interesting background that I thought would be interesting to share with the visitors of this site. You will read about John's broadcast beginning at WMMR, his work at WCCO-TV and WCCO radio, KDWB and some stories about some broadcast giants he worked with along the way. John's story is presented unedited to the right. Just click on the PDF icon to read this interesting story and view additional photos. His aircheck from WCCO in the Mid-60's is below also.
KUXL 1962 MPLS Tribune photos of station president, CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE
KUXL March 1st, 1962 MPLS Tribune ad announcing the new KUXL. Contributed by John Sewall & posted 1-10-14. CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE
KUXL 1962 MPLS Tribune photos. KUXL news paper clipping provided by John Sewall
Dan Thomas (Dennis McGinley)
1948 - 2015
KTCR-FM Stereo 97 24 Hour Country - Mid 1970's
KTCR-FM was the Twin Cities 1st 24 hour country FM. A number of KTCR alumni went on the bigger and better radio jobs, like WCCO's Al Malmberg, who worked at KTCR-FM in 1972.
Dan Thomas, who at one time did Red Owl commercials in front of the camera for TV and was a TV spokesman on some Wickes Furniture commercials in the late 1970's, came to KTCR-FM in 1974. Dan previously worked at a country station in Ft. Wayne IN, and he later became an employment recruiter at a St. Paul staffing agency. In 1978 he helped me get a job at the firm he was at. I was there a few months and left after getting my real estate license. I was much better at real estate than as a recruiter, or as a DJ for that matter. After leaving the recruiting business, I lost track of Dan until 2007. Dan passed away in October 2015 and left behind a fine family who loved him dearly.
A couple of airchecks (located on the icon to the right) include an aircheck of him at KTCR-FM and one of him at WLYV in Ft.Wayne, Indiana. The WLYV tape was use as the audition tape to get his job at KTCR-FM in include him doing several commercials at the end of the aircheck. He was glad to get back to the Twin Cities, where he grew up.
KTCR-FM Recorded off the air by Rick Burnett WLYV recorded by Dan Thomas (posted 4/24/2015
The airchecks on this not for profit web site were recorded off the air. The recordings on this site provide historical examples of Twin Cities radio and are intended for purposes of archival preservation and for research. Additionally, the recordings can be used by vision impaired visitors to get an audio perspective of radio history. These recordings are not intended to by used by others for commercial purposes.
Some of the airchecks are off reel to reel tapes that were recorded off the air by the web site creator. In May 2006 the recordings started to be converted to MP3 and shared here. In addition to this web site creator's recorded aircheck collection, there are also many airchecks that were recorded and submitted by friends and acquaintances, or contributed by other collectors. Sources are cited, if known. The contributed recordings from friends and contributors of both airchecks and other material are greatly appreciated. Without their help, the site would have many less pages of radio history. The recordings of the contributors to this web site who recorded them off the air may show up on other sites. This site does not charge any fees to listen to the posted recordings. The purpose of this site is to provide radio history and intended for purposes of archival preservation and research.
Windows Media Player works well to play these MP3 files, and depending on your internet settings, will start streaming the file once the link is clicked, Some files are large and may take time to open. Should you have any aircheck of Twin Cities radio stations, let me know and I may be able to include them at this site. Contact me at Rick(at)HotMail.com --- NOTE Replace "(at)" with @ when typing email address
