Booger Brothers Broadcasting System

Almost everyone knows what a Les Paul guitar is, but history seem to be forgetting Les Paul the person. Firstly, his real name was Lester William Polsfuss, He never legally changed his name. Les Paul was a stage name he started using in the mid-1930s. It wasn't even his first stage name. Paul didn't start buildings guitars until the 1940s. Before his guitar era he was a radio performer, a recording engineer, a music director and for a time ...a pirate radio operator. Whole books have been written about the mans many storied accomplishments but I'd like to focus on radio and one pirate station in particular. More here. Paul was a genius engineer his ability to build a transmitter, or even an entire radio station is not in doubt —only the details around this particular tale.

The story is fabulous, who doesn't like a tale mixing wild house parties with pirate radio and hot jazz.  But it's main problem is that his biographies skip over it. The biographical reference is admittedly brief. It appears in his 1993 biography Les Paul: An American Original, by Mary Alice Shaughnessy. Les Paul was still alive when it was published, he died in 2009. That overlap also gives it more credence, but contemporary references were hard to find.

So let's start with his early radio experiences. He received some engineering training as early as 8 years old by an unnamed engineer from WTMJ. He became a musician as a teenager. He played with Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and played with Sunny Joe Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis, MO, on KMOX. The book The Mighty 'MOX by Sally and Rob Rains identifies corroborates that early KMOX program. It is otherwise very obscure.

A young guitar player known as "Rhubarb Red" was part of The International Oil Burner Show between 4:30 and 7 AM from 1927 to 1930."

Les relocated with Joe Wolverton's band to Chicago and started playing on WBBM with them, and then solo as Rhubarb Red. He was performing as both a country artist and a jazz solist. As Red he started recording with Art Tatum which is when his career really took off. The book Famous Wisconsin Musicians by Susan Masino also has him performing at WISN in Milwaukee, WRJN in Racine, and both KBGA and KWTO in Springfield, IL and of course WJJD and WIND in Chicago. This is further referenced in the book Encyclopedia of American Radio 1920 - 1960 by Luther Sies

"Rhubarb Red. A CW tenor, guitarist and harmonica player, Rhubarb Red appeared daily at 6:30 A.M. and again at 9:00 AM. in an all request program WJJD, Chicago, IL; and WIND, Gary, IN, 1935-1937."

That same book has Les relocating to New York in 1937. The official Les Paul website puts it in 1938, but close enough. But 1938 is definitely when he began performing with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians on NBC radio.  In 1941 He returns to Chicago and becomes the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. So from his career history we can say definitively that his pirate station existed for a period of time between 1938 and 1941.

Here we have the pirate station boxed in my context. As the legend goes... in Jackson Heights, NY, Les created his own local radio station and broadcast jam sessions. His makeshift studio full of professional musicians. The station operated at low wattage and was only receivable locally, but due to the proximity of LaGuardia airport that included aircraft. Yes, the claim is that the airplanes flying into LGA would get scrambled signals of jazz music mixing with coordinates from the tower. Purportedly he solved that engineering problem with a "wave trap."

How much of that is true? Well, Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the Queens in New York City. Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford had an apartment in 40-15 81 St. That address is only about 2 miles from LGA. Most sources describe that as a studio apartment. But Les Paul in an interview said "Getting union cards jumped our pay to $150 a week and allowed us to take furnished apartments at Electra Court." Advertisements for the units described it as "The House of to-morrow, ready to-day!" The developers ran ads for furnished apartments in Down Beat magazine, specifically advertising to musicians —just as Les described. So here was have a plausible reason he had such access to professional musicians; his building was full of them!

Different versions of the tale claim that he set up his studio in the building’s basement, near the furnace room. His friends came over and they played together. But his friends at the time are now enormously famous musicians: band members from the biggest big bands of the era. Not the band leaders but the working union card musicians from Benny Goodman's band, Glenn Miller’s band, Artie Shaw's band, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey's bands, Fred Waring’s band, Bob Crosby’s band and Lionel Hampton's band. It's almost too fantastical to be real. How many of them lived at Electra Court?

I did eventually find a contemporary reference in the July 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics. I think that's Ernie Newton on bass which might make that band some iteration of the Les Paul trio. Did the FCC pay him a visit? Did he really take the  mic and announce the station name as "Booger Brothers Broadcasting?"

The Popular Mechanics article is missing the "Booger Brothers" connection but everything else is there. The general location, the famous musicians, and the broadcasting equipment stretching from the apartment to the basement. A 1953 issue of the Atkinson's Evening Post claims that Les gave the station ID as "The Booger Brothers, The Pink and Yellow network, top of your dial."  But Les went on to say "It was a good station... but the law would have caught up with us if an accident hadn't beat it to the punch." What accident? The Booger Brothers came to an abrupt end in 1941. While jamming in his apartment basement in 1941, Paul was nearly electrocuted to death. [SOURCE]

Paul describes it himself in the book The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy, 1915-1963 by Robb Lawrence. "I stuck my hand in the transmitter when I shouldn't have..." Bassist Ernie Newton knocked him free but he was seriously injured. After an ice bath they took Paul to the hospital. It took him two years to recuperate according to some sources. This is not entirely true but Booger Brothers was still off the air.

In 1941 or 1942 he moved to Chicago where he became the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. A promotional photo dated October of 1941 puts him in the Chicago CBS studio. Newspaper radio schedules still show his trio playing on local stations: they were as on air at KLZ and KVOR in May of 1942. A November schedule has him on WEOA, WCKY, WGAR, WHIO, and KMOX at different times. Some biographies have him moving to "Hollywood" in 1943. That's partly true. The only radio he did after that was for the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) because he got drafted. Though he did do some films. The Bing Crosby radio show that gets connected to this move was Kraft Music Hall and he didn't appear on that program until 1945. He got his own eponymous radio show in 1950. It was a 15-minute slot on NBC with his trio now composed of himself, Mary Ford, and rhythm player Eddie Stapleton. His career never stopped but I think that's the last major radio milestone on that long and storied career I mentioned.

The Local Music Show on WHCM

 

In the world of college radio, WHCM is a relatively young radio station. They only won their FCC license in the year 2000, buying it out from the EMF station WCLR. It's the only occasion I know of where an EMF station became a college station, and not the other way around. Prior to that acquisition, they only broadcast via a PA system inside campus buildings. Before 1997 the call sign WHCM actually belonged to a country station in Parkersburg, WV.

This radio show actually caught my eye on social media. It came as a series of playlists typed out on what looks like a Smith Corona. It it's not AI, it's not a meme-generator, it's an actual analog clickity-click typewriter, complete with the ribbon texture impressed upon each page. For us geezers that's an evocative thing. Unlike most playlists I barely knew any of the artists. That is exactly how you bait a music geek.  Thankfully, show host Erik Hanson was up for an interview.

 

JF: Can you tell me about your criteria for local music?  How local does a band have to be, to be local enough for your show?

EH: To be on the show, you have to be from Chicago or the suburbs. People have tried to get me to expand to Milwaukee, Rockford, and Indiana, but through 170 shows, I've played 719 different bands and artists from Chicagoland alone! Of those 719, most are (or were at the time) current independent working bands. Plus, I'm finding new bands all the time. There is so much talent in this town.

JF: The Local Music Show debuted on May 12th, 2020. You just posted the playlist for show 170 consistently numbering them. How has the show changed over the last 4 years?

EH: Not much has changed about the show since its inception in terms of the format, but how I pre-produce the show has evolved.  When I started, I only knew a few local bands and artists.  Bandcamp quickly became my go-to source for searching out local music. I would find a band I’d like and reach out via email or social media. It was a slow build. Now, between the show’s growing profile and the relationships I’ve built with artists, finding music has become easier and shows often fill up 2 to 3 weeks in advance. I do miss the Bandcamp hunt sometimes though :-). 

The other big change was getting on Instagram around the 40th episode. I didn’t realize that's where all the bands were hanging out and it opened up a lot of avenues for the show in terms of connecting with artists. Coincidentally, having to create new original graphics every week helped me develop my design skills as well.

 JF: What's your connection to the RecRoom? I found a series of videos branded as a collaboration between The Local Music Show and Rec Room Studios and your playlists describe a live broadcast.

EH: I know Eric Block from Rec Room Studios through a recurring freelance gig we both used to work.  Eric pitched the idea to me: we bring in a band to do a 15-20-minute live session at Rec Room Studios. He records the audio and I shoot and edit the video. When it’s ready, the session debuts on The Local Music Show and then we release it on YouTube later that week. Additionally, the bands have the option to release the session as a “Live from the Rec Room” album after it debuts on the radio.  We would love to do more, but coordinating has been difficult (which is 100% on me and my schedule). You can check out the sessions here: https://www.youtube.com/@RecRoomLive

JF: According to legend, WHCM is an acronym for William Harper Community College. Have you ever thought of any better ones?

EH: I'm glad you asked this because it gave me a chance to go back and clarify it for myself. Technically, WHCM doesn't stand for anything. However, we have discussed the idea of "Harper College Media" to reflect the opportunities at Harper College beyond Radio, which include video, podcasting, and the new Audio/Visual certificate. I feel like this question was set up for me to be funny, but I can't come up with anything witty enough.

JF: You also host the Basement Records show a few days a week, and though the schedule doesn't say it, I see local artists creeping into its playlists as well. Can't resist? Or is Chicago music inescapable?

EH: The best radio is local radio and that should reflect in all aspects: community events and info, local non-profit PSAs, local hosts sharing their stories, and local music, which for me is inescapable. There is so much talent here that deserves an outlet.

I grew up in the golden age of Chicago radio, listening to Dick Biondi, Steve Dahl, and Kevin Matthews. They were always grounded in local community. They featured local artists and businesses and they made you feel like you were a part of it. Those are my influences and it's is why I love being part of Harper Radio. The station is committed to serving the college and community.

JF: I regularly see an asterisk on your playlists which reads "World Premier".  How did it come to pass that you're broadcasting one or more world premier singles every week?  

EH: What I'd like to think is that bands and artist recognize that I value local music and I treat their work with the respect it deserves, but that sounds arrogant. Maybe I'm just available. I think more than anything, the best parts of my show have come from building relationships with artists, whether it be live shows that I have had the chance to be involved with or premiering new music. Sometimes it is a coincidence and the timing works out, but other times, an artist will reach out. For example, next week, I'm debuting a new track from Impulsive Hearts. They were on the very first episode of The Local Music Show and Danielle Sines has been supportive ever since. They're gearing up for an April release of their new record Fit 4 the Apocalypse and she reached out to say they're thinking bout releasing a second single and asked if I'd like to premiere it.  Yes, I would.

It's the same with the live shows. The first show happened because Bridget Stiebris from Kickstand Entertainment (whom I first talked to through her band Ok Cool) and Jesse Ewan of Speed Babes both asked me a day apart about collaborating on a show. We ended up merging those ideas and did our first live event at the Beat Kitchen in August 2022 with Speed Babes, Impulsive Hearts, and 8-bit crEEps...three of the most-played bands on the radio show at that point.

Even some of the fun IDs on my show are a reflection of community. Getting out to shows, I started to meet non-band people who were just as important to the local music scene and I wanted to find a way to feature them on the radio show as well. Now you can hear contributions from photographers Vicki Holda and Tracy Conoboy, Noelle Salazar who runs The Darkroom, and Sarah Beidatsch and Zac Emry from the Album Rebrews Podcast.

JF: Thanks for playing Ike Reilly. I feel like he never got his due. Any other Chicago musicians you feel should have become rock stars? 

EH: Ike is great and I will never understand how or why certain bands get big and others do not. As an Urge Overkill fan back in the day, I never understood how they weren't the biggest band on the planet after Saturation came out. I'd like to know who's in charge of picking which bands will be the next big thing because I'd like to get in on that. On a serious note though, since starting the show in 2020, it's been fun to see bands I've played on the show grow and start to venture off on tours and play larger venues. Just a couple of weeks ago Pinksqueeze headlined the Metro. It was great.

JF: As Professor Erik Hanson, you also teach at Harper College. Do you have any radio experience prior to Harper radio?

EH: Yes, I covered High School football games at WBIG in Aurora and sat in as co-host on a sports show for a while. I am part-time adjunct faculty at Harper. My day job is in multimedia production, so I've worked on various audio projects through there as well, including developing two podcasts.

JF: I see you've been making a list of Chicago bands at Bandcamp: https://bandcamp.com/dynovinyl Is this a means to an end?

EH: When I started the show, Bandcamp was the go-to for finding Chicago music. So, I suppose  you can say it was a means to an end. Not only was it a good resource to go back to, but it still helps to this day when I get Bandcamp emails about new releases, especially if I missed those announcements on social media.

JF: You have added one record to discogs.com. It was The Sueves – Tears of Joy. Can you tell me about this band?

Before I started the show in 2020, I hadn't been keyed into the local music music scene in a while. Apparently, in the mid-20-teens, I completely missed a great garage rock revival in Chicago with bands like Son of a Gun, The Bingers, Ovef Ow, Furr, Mama, and The Sueves.

The Sueves add a touch of surf influence to their fuzzy guitar riffs and raw vocals, everything that falls right into my wheelhouse as a music fan. Tears of Joy is a great record; all killer, no filler. The album cover for the vinyl release is beautiful;  hand-pulled silkscreen done by main Suave Joe Schorgl, who has since moved to Cleveland, but returns to Chicago once in a while for art shows or to play with one of his bands The Sueves, Skip Church, and Wülfpac.  

JF: Can you tell me about the doggo?

EH: That's Mora, our family dog! She's a sweet pup. It's funny, I created that circular logo before knowing what I was going to feature in the center. I tried all sorts of stuff, an illustration of a tiger, lightning bolts, and radio-related stuff, but nothing worked. It didn't reflect me or the show. Then, I remembered the low-angle photo of Mora looking stoic.  It worked perfectly and now that she's getting up there in age, I'm grateful she's become the face of the show.

DJ David Brenner

David Brenner Live was a very short-lived program by a comedian who was very famous at the time. It's so brief that some of the articles about the debut, didn't run until it was almost over. The image above is from the August 31st, 1985 issue of Billboard magazine. The show first aired July 17th of that year. The earliest reference I found was in the July 6th issue of Billboard, it was a short plug.

"Also in New York, DIR Broadcasting has a music/comedy weekly dubbed "David Brenner Live" slated for a July 17th debut. David Lee Roth and Joe Piscopo are the honored guests for that episode, and the 90-minute program is promised to be mostly music. Features on the show, for which 150 stations have signed up so far, include, an oldies segment, top 10 count down, live performances and a listener phone-in bit."

The description sounds like the dogs breakfast, it's music, it's comedy, it's talk, it's live, it's a call-in... It sounds like they didn't have a plan. Alternate theory... maybe they wanted to give Brenner options. A smart programmer might understand it was the safe move to give a stand-up comic flexibility. Who knows. 

That description left me wondering what the show sounded like, but my impression was that there were very few episodes aired. How many show's were there?  I don't really know for sure.  There are 15 weeks and 3 days between the given start and end dates. If it was a weekly program, then that'd be an absolute maximum of 16 episodes. I wrote this draft post years ago, but I found a tape of one show just in March of 2024. At some point I'll have to digitize that aircheck.

August 31st, 1985, Billboard described a CBS segment on DIR Broadcasting's new comedy program "David Brenner Live." That first episode included an interview with David Brenner, DIR's Bob Myrowitz, and the guest was David Lee Roth. The article also identified July 17th as the debut. Myrowitz and DIR are better known for other syndicated programs: The King Biscuit Flower Hour, Schaefer Rock City, and Country Cuts.

David Brenner was a trail-blazer in the genre of observational comedy. He was a  regular on Tonight Show in the 1970s, a frequent guest of Howard Stern, Bill Maher, David Letterman, Larry King and even Ed Sullivan. He was a very influential comic and a beloved figure in his home town of Philadelphia. He's kind of like Rocky, except that he's real. I'd also like to state for the record that his books are good. My personal favorites are Soft Pretzels with Mustard and Nobody Ever Sees You Eat Tuna Fish. Those are autobiographical and have real depth. He didn't tone down the poverty, cocaine or revenge. More here.

David Brenner Live was officially cancelled by November. The New London Day newspaper ran a short article confirming the news on November 2nd. The reasons for the cancellation were disputed. DIR stated that Brenner had scheduling challenges between the program and his stand up comedy obligations. It sounded plausible. But in December Brenner himself stated that he was actually concentrating on a TV pilot. His radio contract was only for 4 shows, with an option to do more. He did the four and moved on. That's all the episodes that exist according to Brenner as a primary source. [SOURCE]

So what was that TV pilot? Brenner got his own TV talk show, Nightlife. It aired weeknights from September 8, 1986, to June 19, 1987. It was produced by Motown Productions in association with King World Productions, the show was filmed in New York City and featured a house band led by Billy Preston. (Yes, the fifth Beatle Billy Preston.)  Dan Ingram was the show's announcer. Nightlife earned an average Nielsen rating of  2.4; not amazing but not bad. Purportedly it was just lost in a sea of other night time talk shows. It still ran for 195 episodes. That's about 40 weeks.

According to that November 2nd issue of Billboard, Brenner's slot was filled with "Almost Live With Richard Belzer." (Mr Belzer has his own oddball radio career I'll cover another day.) Finally in 1987 DRI explained what they had been trying to do. It was Kim Freeman at Billboard again covering the comedy beat. 

"Even with the likes of hot comedians Robert Klein, Richard Belzer, and David Brenner and New York radio star Howard Stern, DIR's longform efforts in this field have "hit a wall" after clearing 30% to 40% of the country. each of these shows were targeted mainly toward album rock radio, a format that [Peter] Kauff feels is missing the boat by not embracing more comedy."

Brenner took a second stab at radio in 1994 hosting a daytime talk-radio program. He took over the time slot of the Larry King Show on Westwood One. It ran 3:00 - 6:00 PM Eastern time. The first episode guests included David Letterman, Howard Stern and comedian Richard Lewis. Some critics bemoaned the change from news to entertainment but the show aired in 100 markets and ran from 1994 to 1996. David Brenner died in 2014 of pancreatic cancer.

E. Rodney Jones, The World's Greatest Disc Jockey

I first found Mr. E. Rodney Jones on the back of a cassette. It was the back of the album: War Live  UA-CA193-J to be specific. (By the way, it's a fine album) Looking online for more info on the release I couldn't actually find any about the cassette, but that's common for 1970s tapes. Here's an image of the 8-track, a format which has somehow retained more cultural caché. [LINK]

So the note is just a one line attribution. "Introductions By E. Rodney Jones Of Radio Station WVON, Chicago, Ill."  This would be WVON-AM. The station moved from 1450 to the former 5,000-watt WNUS signal on 1390 in February of 1974. This particular "War Live!" album was released that same month and year, so it's pretty likely that the frequency was 1450 when it was recorded but that Jones would have been giving the station ID as 1390 WVON when he first spun the record. The band War released 13 albums between 1970 and 1979, so suffice it to say that Jones probably said their name a lot.

While researching this record I learned that The "E" in E. Rodney Jones stands for Earl. I also discovered that he has a robust discography of his own. It includes an oddity, released in 2005 the album "E. Rodney Jones, the World's Greatest Disc Jockey Presents... the World Series Of Blues & Soul Vol. 1"   [LINK])  Similar to his intro on "War Live!" Jones introduces the compilation. What follows is 19 tracks of blues and soul artists like Guitar Shorty, Ruth Brown, Jimmy Reed, Lightning Slim and several folks I've honestly never heard of.  It looks like something you'd find in a truck stop record bin. But wait is that Tom Joyner on the left?

Tom Joyner was born in 1975 so he was all of 30 years old on that album cover. E. Rodney Jones died in 2004, so this is probably his last recording at the age of 76!  The art is honestly a little cheesey, with the clip art, but E. Rodney Jones is a legend. I needed to hear this. I found a copy on Amazon for $1.50. Apparently people do not agree with me that this is a collectors item.

Jone's short bios usually say something like "The late E. Rodney Jones may have been the most prolifically-recorded of the great R&B DJs." Below is a list of just recordings where he was the writer and/or performing artist. He also produced records for folks like Mel Brown, wrote the liner notes for Major Lance and Jackie Ivory. He even wrote lyrics for Richard Parker, Mamie Galore, and Snooks Eaglin.

FORMAT	Artist	Title	Year/Label
LP	E. Rodney Jones/Lafayette Leake Trio	Might is Right	1970/Yambo
LP	E. Rodney Jones	At Heave's Grocery Store	1982/Hep' Me
45	E. Rodney Jones	R&B Time Pt. 1 / R&B Time Pt. 2	1967/Tuff
45	E. Rodney Jones & Larry & The Hippies Band	Right On, Right On / Chicken On Down	1970/Double Soul
45	E. Rodney Jones & Larry & The Hippies Band	Right On / Football	1970/Westbound
45	E. Rodney Jones & Willie Henderson	The Whole Thing / Loose Booty	1972/Brunswick
45	E. Rodney Jones	Peace Of Mind / Do The Thang	?/Tuff
CD	V/A	...The World Series Of Blues & Soul	2005/S.D.E.G.
45	War	War Live!	1973/UA
45	E. Rodney Jones	Pushing The Buck / Soul Sister	?/Double Soul
45	Syl Johnson & E. Rodney Jones	Soul Heaven/Is It Because I'm Black Pt.2	N/A
LP	E.Rodney Jones & The Prairie Dogs	Country And Western	1970/Concert Hall

Was this pay back for play back? Probably some of the time. Alan Freed did the same thing and Jones wasn't just a DJ, he was also a manager. In 1973 Jones testified (with immunity) about payola in Federal Court along with several other radio programmers. I'll re-quote the New York Times article here:

"E. Rodney Jones, program director of WVON, Chicago, said he had received a total of $2,000 on six occasions from Mr. Moore, which the witness described as “a token of his appreciation” He said he also received airline tickets from Mr. Moore... “Gifts or money have never had any influence on my playing of records,” Mr. Jones said. “If I didn't believe it was a potential hit, it wouldn't have been played.”"

Mr. Moore there would be Melvin Moore, a promoter from Brunswick records. Moore was in many ways similar to Jones. He was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist from Tulsa, OK. He performed with Ernie Fields’ orchestra and Zoot Sims, Lucky Millinder, even Dizzy Gillespie's band. In 1963 he got a straight job at Decca Decca Records as a promoter, then moved to Brunswick records in 1966. By 1970 he was their director of R&B promotions. More here and here.

The breadth of Jone's career is difficult to measure. He worked for more than 20 years at WVON-AM in Chicago with an afternoon program calling himself "the Mad Lad."That's the tenure his was best known for, but he moved all over the country which in may ways spread his style of R&B programming, he personally shaped R&B as a radio format.  

Jones was born in Texarkana, AR in 1927 (or 1928). Every biography fixates on his long tenure at WVON. But his career didn't stop or start there. A 1968 radio programming guide [LINK] gives one of the more plausible biographies of his early years:

 "[He] began his career as a band musician in Texarkana. Later became a MC., then worked a trick in Kansas City, Mo., moved to KXLW in St. Louis and WBBR in East St. Louis for 8 yrs. In 1962, the "Mad Lad" moved to Chicago joining WVON in 1963."

There are biographies that claim he worked at a local station in Texarkana, this is difficult to corroborate. The band story makes more sense. And can be corroborated. [SOURCE] We can even narrow down what station pretty easily.  Between the 1947 and 1957 editions of the radio Broadcasting annual only three stations exist in Texarkana: 1230 KCMC-AM/98.1 KCMC-FM and 1400 KTFS-AM, only adding 790 KOSY-AM to the market in 1951. That's three of the 5 radio stations in the whole state of Arkansas. He confirmed it was KTFS in a taped interview [SOURCE] for the book Black Radio : Telling It Like It Was. He also names the old top-40 station 1490 KUDL in that interview but not KXLW though the latter has many citations. KUDL signed on in 1953 so that does little to box in the time frame. But his brief time at WBBR is time-bound, they only used the call WAMV from 1961 - 1963. It's corroborated by a short "Good Guys" bio in the 1968 WVON Holiday LP.

CALL SIGN	City	Years
1400 KTFS	Texarkana, AR	1954/55?
1490 KUDL	Kansas City, MO	1956?
1320 KXLW	St. Louis, MO	1957 - 1960
1500 WBBR	East St. Louis, MO	1961 - 1962
1390 WYNR	Chicago, IL	1962
1450 WVON	Chicago, IL	1963 - 1976
1570 WBEE	Chicago, IL	1966?
940 WYLD	New Orleans, LA	1982-1986
1090 KAAY	Little Rock, AR	1984*
1310 KDIA	San Francisco, CA	1992?
1460 WXOK	Baton Rouge, LA	1994,1995
106.3 KQXL	Baton Rouge, LA	1994

I think Jones had departed WVON in 1977 or 1978 as WVON and WXOL had been forced into a time share agreement by then changing both stations. One Billboard reference in 1994 reports that he was a program director at KDIA, but that's hard to fit into his timeline. Multiple references cite his combined tenure at WXOK-AM and KQXL-FM in Baton Rouge to be more than 12 years. It seems highly likely but there are few references to confirm the dates.

E. Rodney Jones time at WVON -AM in the 60s and 70s made him a superstar. He became known to the station's audience as one of "The Good Guys," one of five radio personalities handpicked by the owner Leonard Chess. 

We don't have line ups today like The Good Guys on WVON 1390. We barely have line ups. Above is the top 45 at WVON from June 20-26 1975. The word soul today evokes an entirely different genre really. But check out those DJs: Lucky Cordell, Bernadine Washington, Pervis Spann, Bill 'Doc' Leem Joe Cobb, Bill Crane, Jay Johnson, Cecile Hale, Herb Kent, Wesley South, Richard Pegue, Isabel Johnson, Ed Cook, Jim Maloney, Earl Law, Larry Langford and E. Rodney Jones! Don't touch that dial!  A 1972 list would have looked quite similar missing only Langford from the list.

E. Rodney Jones is a member of the Black Radio Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Living Legend Award in the Radio Smithsonian Institute. He career spanned over 40 years but he is forever one of the Good Guys.

8TC Protective Cap

Here's an oddity, and I've never seen one before.  

It's labeled "8TC Protective Cape." The "p" is shaped a bit funny but only a couple possible words made sense. [I doubt it's cave or cafe.] I ultimately decided that it says "cap" because I found a few other related items. The usual 8-track websites don't seem to have them. Kate's Track Shack has a few [LINK] but they seem to be different makes. The UK eBay seller Retronical seems to have an exclusive supplier for new covers, they're calling it a "tape end cover protector" using that particular modern SEO grammar. Functionally it's no different than a lens cover.

8TC no doubt stands for 8 Track Cassette. The device simply clips over the end of the case to protect the exposed magnetic tape.  The function makes sense, and it certainly works. You just have to follow the two instructions "remove to play" and "replace for protection", "replace after playing" or "replace to store." A couple note that they're made in England.

With terms like cap, protector and cover I found a few more makes, with different colors, slightly different sizes and shapes.  Currently I think this was more of a a fringe UK, product. A semi-disposable plastic something, lacking the utility and ubiquity of a 45-adapters.  I looked through 1970s issues of Billboard and reviewed ads from LE-BO, for the cases, and suppliers like King Karol, Ecofina, Ampak, Crest, Recoton etc. and there was nothing, no ads, no patents, no trademarks... nothing. They remain a mystery.