I watched American Grafitti for about the umpteeth time and got to wondering where was Wolfman dj ing from.We would tune in KOMA from Ok. City back in the 60s.We could pick it up at night in California where i was stationed and thought the Wolfman was the dj.Could be wrong,so thought the hambers could chime in and help out.
I don' remember what town he was close to but he was close enough to the beach that he would soak his grounds down with ocean water at night when no one was looking to help him get out. I used to get him up in San Francisco when the weather was just right.
When he first started using the name "Wolfman Jack", he was broadcasting just across the border in Mexico, as they had stations putting out 250,000 watts.... That allowed the signal to carry just about all over North America.
In 1963 He went to Ciudad Acuña in Mexico, near Tijuana, where they could broadcast with 250,000 watts, compared to the US legal limits of 50,000 watts. After 8 months he left Mexico and went to Minneapolis, but missed the excitement of California and came back to LA. He took over at the Mighty 1090 XERB and would record hi s show and then is was run down to Mexico to be broadcast. The Mexican government basically shut them down in 71 feeling that the mostly Roman catholic population shouldn't be subjected to such radio along with the Pentecostal Preaching that XERB also broadcast. After that he went to KDAY in LA, but they couldn't pay him anywhere near as much, so he edited his old tapes from XERB and invented Syndicated Radio when he sold them to stations all over the country. He was also broadcast on Armed Forces Rasdio. In late 73 he went to WNBC in New York, but after a year he was back in California with his syndicated show. Eventually he moved back to North Carolina to be with family. Wolfman Jack had finished broadcasting his last live radio program, a weekly program nationally syndicated from Planet Hollywood in downtown Washington, D.C. He said that night, "I can't wait to get home and give Lou a hug, I haven't missed her this much in years." Wolfman had been on the road, promoting his new autobiography Have Mercy!: Confessions of the Original Rock 'N' Roll Animal, about his early career and parties with celebrities. "He walked up the driveway, went in to hug his wife and then just fell over," said Lonnie Napier, vice president of Wolfman Jack Entertainment. Wolfman Jack died of a heart attack in Belvidere, North Carolina, on July 1, 1995. He was 57 years old
Didn't he end up somewhere near bakers field or maybe modesto at some point? It seems like someone said that to me at some time or another.
I got a chance on two occasions to actually talk to him on the phone when he was doing those last live broadcasts from Planet Hollywood in Wash. D.C. He took my requests for songs. The first time, "I'm a Roadrunner Baby" by Jr. Walker & the All-Stars and the second time, "When a Man Loves a Woman" Percy Sledge. It was a thrill for me at the time to get through and get to speak with the Wolfman. Got an autographed promo photo and a copy of his book also, both of which I cherish. It was a huge loss to pop culture when he went on to the radio station in the sky.
Yes, I met him in a small station up near Modesto the night before I left town for college. I'll never forget it. I went in because I was looking for this girl and he was eating popsicles because his refrig...oh wait, that wasn't me.
No, but I do have a nice autographed 8x10 of Wolfman Jack!! I think I was 13 or 14 years old (about a year after American Grafitti. came out)
Anyone who ever heard him on the radio or liked his prformance in AG owes it to theirself to read his autobiography. HAVE MERCY, pretty good read
Pretty cool to read the posts of folk who met him, I wore out my first double 33 rpm album of American Graffiti always skipping to the tracks that he did an intro on, understandable how he did indeed have a mystical hold on folk cruising, if you were one of them cherish that memory, it's pretty damn cool!
I requested an ad kit from the Mighty 690 and one of the promos they used to show the reach of Wolfman Jack was an iron on picture "for your pillowcase so you always have the Wolfman next to you". Requests came from every state in the union, including Alaska and Hawaii.
Growing up in Detroit we had Lee Alan & Joel Sebastian as our "cool" dj's. They were long gone by the time I got drafted in 69. Stationed in San Diego & Pendelton stateside was the 1st time I heard the Wolfman. "How cool is this" I thought. When I got out & described him to friends they just didnt get it. They caught on when AG came out.
I was crusing through the aisles of a car parts swap meet about 5 years ago and came across a DJ playing Wolfman's shows.. He had a lot of them and was asking about $20 each which tempered my enthusiasm. At a later show I saw the same vendor and asked him about the Wolfman CDs and he said all the stuff was under a copyright and he had to "destroy" the CDs.. He also said very little of Wolfman's material is being released keeping the price of what is out already pretty high. Dont know if this is true but I never see much of Wolfman's stuff around. Use to listen to him via XERB when in highschool in No. Cal while drinking a Mable Black Label beer. Pretty bad beer but the only thing we could get from the corner store that took our ID.
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