Jack(son) Armstrong Passes + Airchecks

[jon]

A member of reelradio.com is reporting the passing of Jackson Armstrong (John Larsh), best known to Canadians for his time at CHUM and WKBW. Overall, if you studied Top 40 radio, you knew his name. He was just that famous. And so was his Gorilla (sidekick voice).

The following is from reelradio's General Comments thread:

I am shocked to have to report this but, I got this notice yesterday from Jack Armstrong's daughter, Devon Larsh Fischer:

Extremely saddening news... I hoped I never had to write...

Our extremely amazing Dad and your friend Jack Armstrong aka John C. Larsh passed away yesterday March 22, 2008 at his home in North Carolina.

If you knew him at all, you would know that he wouldn't want you to be sad for a moment. He would want you to remember all the good times, what he gave to radio and to the world. He would also want you to help fight to bring back the personality in radio if at all possible. He loved being a DJ almost as much as he loved being a father and that says A LOT. He put his blood, sweat and tears into both and never gave up what he believed in. He was honest, brave and could tell a joke like no other!! He was the best at everything he did and I know that he touched each and every one of us. I dont know how he would sign off this letter, maybe it would be "Yoooooouuuuurrr LLLlleeeadaaa!" or just straight up "Jack it up" either which way he would have done it better than anyone. Please remember him in all that you do, pass on kindness, be true to yourself and to those you love.

If you have any questions, please email me at JackArmstrong08@gmail.com

Very sad, Devon Larsh Fischer
--------

The following is Jack's bio from 440.com:

WCOG [Greensboro NC] 1964 - John Larsh
WAYS [Charlotte NC] 1965 - John Larsh
WIXY [Cleveland OH] 1966
WKYC [Cleveland OH] 1967 - Big Jack
WMEX [Boston] 1968
CHUM [Toronto Ontario] 1968
WPOP [Hartford CT] 1969
KTLK [Denver] 1969
WKBW [Buffalo] 1970
WKTQ [Pittsburgh] 1973
KDKA [Pittsburgh] 1975
WHYI [Miami] 1975
WIFE [Indianapolis IN] 1976
KTNQ/KHTZ [LA] 1978
KFI [LA] 1980
KFRC [San Francisco] 1982
KKHR [LA] 1984
KBOS [Tulare CA] 1988
WMQX [Winston-Salem NC] 1997
WWKB [Buffalo] 2002-2006

[radiofan]

For those not familiar with Jackson's on-air work, here's how he sounded in 1968 and 1988.

Jackson counts down the Top 10 of CHUM's Top 300 from Thanksgiving weekend of 1968.

Jackson at CHUM Toronto

7:02 4,957 KB

-----

In March of 1988 he was in Fresno, California at Top 40 KBOS playin' the hits in AM Drive.

Jackson at KBOS Fresno, CA

10:13 7,192 KB

[jon]

Since CHUM was impossible to hear in Vancouver, and WKBW only well after midnight on Sunday nights, it was 1-A Clear Channel WKYC-1100 where I would have heard Big Jack as he was known there, doing Evenings.

ReelRadio has quite a collection of Jackson Armstrong airchecks: http://www.reelradio.com/findit/findit. ... =armstrong
If you don't have a subscription, it is only $12/year. Otherwise, you can still read the textual description and comments thread on each, which are always very informative.

Why the charge? Among other reasons because they offer unscoped airchecks, with the music included, and that requires payment of fees to multiple music licensing organizations. Which is also why RadioWest only provides scoped airchecks.

[sparky]

Here's a video of Jackson in action at KKHR in Los Angeles from 1985 on You Tube.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyHgKZsg ... re=related

[PMC]

Here's a video of Jackson in action at KKHR in Los Angeles from 1985 on You Tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyHgKZsg ... re=related

Excellent... a master at his craft.

[jon]

By popular demand, the tireless curator of reelradio.com has created a Jackson Armstrong tribute page at http://www.reelradio.com/jackarmstrong

[PMC]

By popular demand, the tireless curator of reelradio.com has created a Jackson Armstrong tribute page at http://www.reelradio.com/jackarmstrong

This would be nice in MP3, rather than a proprietary format, which restricts the enjoyment... same applies to WMA.

[jon]

The short version of the long answer to that question about reelradio formats is that (last year) they were planning to move to AAC+, but RealPlayer was the only one of the three majors that would play it correctly.

Since a key requirement of any format used on the site is to prevent downloads, I'm not sure how you'd do that with MP3. They still deliver Real formats with server-side streaming. People still steal (and resell) airchecks by recording from their sound card, but it does discourage....

Although not directly relevant, I was surprised to learn, while researching alternatives early last year, that RealPlayer is the only one of the three major players that is available on Linux. Yes, I realize that there are non-proprietary alternatives.

[jon]

Reporting to reelradio.com, John Bisci attended the funeral and had this to say (along with the image of the funeral program):



I was one of many who attended Jack Armstrong's memorial service in High Point, NC on Friday. As I entered the chapel for the memorial service it was like no other I have attended. Instead of soft organ music it was "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and other rock 'n roll songs of the 60s and 70s! It was a celebration!

The family displayed not only photos but Jack's studio headphones and mike. Also displayed was a golden cape that Jack used on stage when he introduced big name musical groups. After Jack's daughters spoke, a wonderful rendition of "Over The Rainbow" was offered and there wasn't a dry eye to be seen.

Jack's three daughters spoke of him as not only a great radio personality but a wonderful father. Also speaking was Jack's brother who gave us an insight on what is was like to be the brother of such an outgoing individual. He offered several comical anecdotes of their lives together as young men. Then it was one speaker after another who spoke of their involvement with Jack throughout his many years of radio. We all laughed and cried together, remembering Jack Armstrong.

It was a wonderful celebration of life for a person who seemed larger than life.

[jon]

A friend of this site just pointed out the best article and he and I have ever seen written about Jackson Armstrong. Admittedly, it is Pittsburgh-based, but there is nothing like first person narrative from someone who knew and admired him.

A salute to Jackson Armstrong, the magic man of AM radio

On the day before Easter, Jackson Armstrong died.

It wasn't mentioned in Pittsburgh newspapers or on Pittsburgh television, and it garnered only a brief mention on the medium in which he excelled: radio. Perhaps that's because unlike Myron Cope, Art Pallan and Bob Tracey, radio personalities whose deaths were noted with copious articles and features, Armstrong, whose birth name was John C. Larsh, wasn't here long enough to become a Pittsburgh icon.

Then again, Armstrong wasn't a fixture in any town. Rather, he jumped from city to city, staying just long enough to catapult a radio station's ratings into the stratosphere, then moved on to attract another legion of radio listeners with his rapid-fire delivery and prime-time entertainment.

He was undoubtedly a Top 40 superstar, though Jack would have most certainly arched his eyebrows and grinned if you dared call him that. He knew what he really was - a magic man hired to resurrect the dinosaur that was becoming AM radio. In Pittsburgh, he worked his voodoo well. From the moment he flipped on the microphone in 1973 and shouted, "It's your leeeeeader Jackson Armstrong, here in the 'Burgh, and you're listening to the new sound of 13Q," rival KQV disappeared ... like magic.

For two years, he was the top-rated disc jockey in Western Pennsylvania, then he, too, disappeared.

Veteran Pittsburgh radio personality Jim Quinn recalls first hearing Jackson in 1966 in Cleveland. "I remember thinking 'Man, I wish I could be that good!' followed quickly by 'I hope to God I never have to compete with this guy,'" he said. "As luck would have it, I left KQV in 1972, a few months before he came to town. I dodged the bullet."

Quinn regrets never meeting Armstrong personally. "He was the Tiger Woods of high- energy DJs. Nobody got close. The shame is that he was at so many stations in the twilight of their lives, staring down the headlights of FM. I played a clip of one of his shows on my program a couple of days ago. I was inundated with e-mails from XM-158 listeners from all over the country saying, 'Thanks for the memory.' I guess it didn't matter how long Jack was in town; once you heard him, you never forgot him."

Battman Johnson, who followed Armstrong in the original 13Q lineup, also e-mailed his condolences. "Of all the personalities, Armstrong stuck out. The night didn't know what hit it when Armstrong hit the air in Pittsburgh. He was yelling, screaming, laughing and rocking. I never heard anything like that. When I arrived at the station that first night, looking out from our glass fishbowl studios at the corner of Stanwix and Forbes, I saw a large group of people listening to portable radios and watching Jack. I thought, 'Gee, we are really killing.' They love us!'

"He went off the air at 10 p.m. and the crowd disappeared. I thought, 'Wait a minute. What about me? Aren't you going to wait to watch and listen to the Battman?' No. They were gone. That's when I knew he was hot - red hot."

The dedication of Armstrong to his trade also did not go unnoticed. Gary A. Weiss, regional vice president of Radio One Inc., recalls, "When we signed Jack, his contract called for 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. As he signed his contract and handed it back to us for counter-signature he said, 'Hey, I want to make sure we get every advantage against the competition. Do you mind if I just start my show at 5:30?' I recall several times getting up early and tuning in the station in the 4 a.m. hour and hearing Jack. He just came in and took the station off automation and went on. When I asked why he did that, he said, 'Boss, morning drive is war and I want to win!'"

My own recollection of Jack Armstrong is that of his mentoring a kid who had the passion, but not the pipes for radio. It didn't matter to Jack. Before or after his show, we'd talk for hours about music, listening to new 45s and debating their merits and chances of ever being heard on the radio. Those long nights breezed by as quickly as Armstrong's shotgun delivery.

Once, we were in the studio discussing the difficulty of "hitting lyrics" (talking over a record until the first vocal). He said, "Hey, if you listen to a song enough times, it's just instinct. Watch." He put on "Smoke on the Water," which has an interminable introduction, and starting telling an impromptu story in his usual fashion - with multiple voices, several plot deviations and that distinctive laugh that signaled he was enjoying himself even more than his audience.

And, of course, the punch line segued perfectly into the vocal. It was effortless for him, an impossibility for me. I knew then I needed to get on with my other career - newspapers - but I worked at the station another two years, anyway, and it wasn't for the paycheck. Even if I didn't know jack about deejaying, I knew Jack and what he could teach me.

In the years since, I've listened to music from 13Q's halcyon days of 1973 to 1975 countless times. They don't sound nearly as entertaining anymore. I thought it was because I matured and my music tastes changed. That wasn't it at all. They're missing Jack. And today, so am I.

To hear clips of Armstrong's broadcasts on 13Q, go online and search "Jeff Roteman" or "13Q."

Terry Hazlett covers TV and radio for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at snowballrizzo@aol.com.

Copyright Observer Publishing Co.

[jon]

Jackson Armstrong had a strong Canadian connection, with his work at CHUM in the late 1960s. His connection to the Pacific Northwest is a bit more tenuous.

Legendary Seattle/Portland DJ and PD, Robin Mitchell, reported yesterday that he worked with Armstrong at WIFE in Indianapolis. The aircheck upon which he is commenting debuted yesterday on reelradio.com, and was originally heard on-air in October 1976:

Surpised to hear I "had a cameo" on this aircheck. I was PD of WIFE from 8/76-11/76...just a "pit-stop" before returning to the northwest to launch a new FM for the legendary Pat O'Day.

Jackson Armstrong was there when I arrived. Jack had a great contract with WIFE. Jerry Kunkel had filed on Burden's license when he first got into trouble with the FCC. WIFE was the one Star station that didn't go dark. Kunkel's company had won a competitive hearing for the license. Burden was left with a transmitter and studio equipment, but not license to broadcast. Unfortunately, Jerry Kunkel's group "leased" the studio/transmitter from Burden, so he wasn't entirely out of the picture.

Can't remember the exact jock lineup times during this period, but I believe it was: JON R W WAILIN 5-9am, ROBIN MITCHELL 9-Noon, REB PORTER Noon-3pm, JAY REYNOLDS 3-7PM, JACKSON ARMSTRONG 7PM-MID, STEVE COOPER MID-6AM.

Wailin went on to be longtime AM Drive at country KNEW-San Francisco, Reynolds had recently returned from overnights at WABC-New York, & Armstrong was destined to play the majors in LA & SFO.

It was a privilege to work with such a focussed and consistent pro!!!