When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

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When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

Postby jon » Sun Aug 04, 2013 1:04 pm

Wolfman's Jack Long Slow Rise to Popularity

A lot of radio people listened to distant radio stations while they were growing up in the '50s, '60s and '70s. Hearing different stations from different places further increased our desire to get into Radio and helped us on the way by educating us to the wide variety of creative options successfully being used on the air.

As a result, many of us had heard Wolfman Jack before he gained main stream popularity. Making it easy to forget how long it took before he gained the kind of mainstream Name Recognition that he was known for in later years.

The earliest national (U.S.) media mention of Wolfman Jack that I've been able to find is from February 6, 1968, when the fourth episode of the first season of "It Takes a Thief" was aired nationally on ABC-TV in the U.S. Series star Robert Wagner speaks the throw-away line "If I get bored, I can tune into Wolfman Jack." while using a hearing aid to crack a safe.

I've checked with other Wolfman fans and no one has yet come up with an earlier national mainstream media mention. In fact, despite Wolfman's Hollywood studio location, even those living in Los Angeles could hardly be expected to know the name. Tuning across the dial, you would be more likely to find 5000 watt KGB in San Diego, KHJ's predecessor in the Bill Drake-consulted Much More Music format, than you would XERB with Wolfman on the air.

Despite a nice 50,000 watt signal from not far from San Diego, with a directional pattern that greatly favoured Los Angeles both day and night, XERB had two big problems sandwiching in The Mighty 1090: KNX-1070 and KRLA-1110. Both with 50,000 watts in the day, though KRLA did drop to 10,000 watts at night. Very few radios of that era would have protected XERB from an unbearable amount of "slop" from the two stations only 20 KHz away. I visited cousins in suburban Norwalk the previous summer and found Wolfman barely listenable in the late afternoon among the electrical noise of the neighbourhood and slop from KNX. Slightly uptuning the radio to try and get away from KNX made the KRLA slop unbearable.

When I got to San Diego, however, in the one block walk from the motel to the pool hall, I saw a Wolfman Jack poster in a barber shop window.

Most sources that I found refer to the 1969 movie "A Session with the Committee" as his first mass media appearance. Even that hardly got noticed.

Not that the Robert Wagner mention would have made much of an impression. Nor was it intended to. Episode Writer/Producer Leslie Stevens seemingly had a love for "in the know" jokes as the same episode featured a rock band called The Raspberry Wristwatch to make fun of the then- (when he wrote the script) popular group, The Strawberry Alarm Clock.


When did you first become aware of Wolfman Jack? And when did your friends?

For me, it is tough to nail down an exact date, though I know for sure that I was already a fan by January or early February of 1967. That is when another Burnaby DX'er showed me his Wolfman Jack calendar on his wall, and told me about this new KJR late evening DJ who did very good impressions of Wolfman Jack. I can't be sure, but I don't think I heard Wolfman before he appeared on XERB. Other than DX'ers, no one that I knew had heard of The Wolfman until American Graffiti hit the screen.
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Re: When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

Postby hagopian » Sun Aug 04, 2013 2:50 pm

I met Wolfman, when he did his yearly round of CHUM stations to do a LIVE Wolfman show. He was a very nice man.

I first heard him on XERF, or was it XERB - they were huge tX's in Mexico. He was a GOD to most jocks.

I saw him on Graffiti last night, and it made me wistful. Honestly, I thought it would last forever, and it didn't.

ENJOY every second, is my best advice.
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Re: When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

Postby Muzik » Sun Aug 04, 2013 4:12 pm

I first Heard of Wolfman Jack on his syndicated shows on 14 Cfun's Sunday night graffiti and of course the movie. I actually met the Wolfman in Saskatoon early 80's.Definately a memorable moment in time.
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Re: When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

Postby skyvalleyradio » Mon Aug 05, 2013 10:39 am

I first heard the Wolfman on XERF 1570 in 1964 while night DXing during a family road-trip throughout the southwestern US. Still a pre-teen, I was fascinated by the unforgettable DJ, but not quite appreciative of the heavy-duty blues 'n' R&B he was playing & eventually kept spinning the dial. Two years later, now a teen, I had developed a fascination & love with blues and R&B, even more so than the teen pop getting blasted at me by C-FUN, LG, KPUG, KJR & KOL. DXing one night from my Kerrisdale home with my communications receiver and long-wire, there again was this crazy disc jockey Wolfman Jack, now on XERB 1090 and still playing blues, R&B, a bit of Latin, even some jazz. I LOVED it and made every effort to tune in when possible, unless KING was over-riding the signal. Sometime in 1968 though, Wolfman and XERB had dropped the black format and switched to playing top40 oldies with a few currents thrown in. I'll wager a guess that this may have been one of the first "top-40 oldies" formats in existence and was ahead of it's time. I have a nice collection of Wolfman airchecks 1966-73 and these verify the format change.

My first paying gig in radio took me up to CJDC Dawson Creek, and once again, Wolfman Jack would be one of my few connections to any new progressive music plus a steady diet of rock classics - music I felt "culturally deprived" of living in the Peace Country. Up there, XERB came in even clearer at night, except on occasion when propagation would give CHEC 1090 Lethbridge the edge. I even had one of my 5 AM car radio presets locked onto 1090.

Sometime in the mid-1980's, Wolfman again returned to "border blaster" radio and was involved with another host/producer named Shaun Green. Their contract supplied night-time, English-language programming to XEG 1050 Monterrey and XEPRS 1090 "Xpress 1090" (formerly XERB) paid for by advertising sold by Shaun & the Wolfman. I distinctly remember listening on a regular basis, to Wolfman Jack again playing blues and R&B oldies on XEG during the evening hours and I'm guessing this would have been 1984-86. I would love to find some XEG 'checks if any exist. There's lots of Wolfman airchecks and goodies throughout cyberspace if one digs around. "Clap For the Wolfman..." :groovy:
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Re: When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

Postby Eldon-Mr.CFAY » Mon Aug 05, 2013 4:17 pm

Greetings,
First heard Wolfman on XERB 1090 Tijuana and San Diego area back in the early 70s or late 60s. Used to love his show and believe it or not it would blast in above KING 1090 very often at night even though KING 1090 Seattle was much closer to me in Surrey, B.C. near Vancouver. Some nights you could even hear XERB and The Wolfman with his unique voice and music underneath KING and it was listenable under those conditions too. For awhile in the last couple years I heard CISL 650 carrying repeats of the Wolfmans show on Saturday night, maybe three or four years ago. A neighbor out in Langley tipped me off to it and we were listening one Saturday night to him. Even though it was repeats of original shows still sounded great. Thanks for all the info. Jon and Sky Valley, interesting stuff about Wolfman Jack!!!

73s, Take care everyone

Eldon
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The CFAY Website: http://cfayradio.wordpress.com
CFAY Radio: http://tinyurl.com/l9qqmh
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Re: When did you first hear (of) Wolfman Jack?

Postby drmusic » Mon Aug 05, 2013 8:54 pm

My introduction would probably have been through a parody character, "The Wolfman" on the old Canadian children's series "Hilarious House of Frightenstein." You remember, Billy Van playing several characters, including an ACTUAL werewolf who would spin a hit song in each episode on station EECH (no doubt an inside reference to CHCH-TV, where the show was produced.) To this day, I can't hear Sly and the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher" without hearing, "I AM... the Wolf-MANNN" over the opening notes. So my young mind probably garbled up his appearances with the first time I heard of Wolfman Jack and considered them one in the same, at least until I became familiar with his appearances in the songs "Hit the Road Jack" by the Stampeders and the Guess Who's "Clap for the Wolfman."

Oh, here's a taste of the Billy Van version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k6o0uwnj1U
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