Radio Industry Legend Tom Rounds is Dead

[jon]

Tom Rounds, Pioneer of Music Videos and Rock Fests, Dead At 77
By Rich Appel
Billboard
June 02, 2014 4:59 PM EDT

Tom Rounds, the man who put on the first rock festival, produced the first music videos and co-created “American Top 40,” the syndicated radio countdown program hosted by Casey Kasem for most of its run, died yesterday, June 1. He was 77.

Along with Kasem, Ron Jacobs and Don Bustany, Rounds developed what was the first national countdown show in 1969. “American Top 40,” which originally counted down the forty top songs as ranked on Billboard’s Hot 100, was the first and most popular radio program offered by Watermark Inc., the syndication company formed by Rounds and Jacobs.

Although the first “Amercian Top 40” was heard on just a few stations when it debuted on July 4, 1970 with Kasem at the helm, Rounds brought that total to the 500-station mark by the time ABC purchased Watermark in 1982.

Rounds had been successful in radio for a decade prior to “American Top 40” as a news reporter on WINS New York, air personality on KPOI Honolulu (where he worked with Jacobs) and program director at top 40 KFRC San Francisco. It was there he created the concept of a live outdoor concert as station promotion and charity event. In June 1967, KFRC’s Fantasy Fair And Magic Mountain Music Festival became the first rock festival, pre-dating both the Monterey Pop Festival (a week later) and The Woodstock Music & Art Fair (in 1969). The festival included the first major concert appearance by The Doors, whose single “Light My Fire” would top the Hot 100 seven weeks later.

Rounds left KFRC to form Charlatan Productions where, with Jacobs, he not only produced other rock festivals but worked with record companies to develop films to match songs as a promotional tool for artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Steppenwolf. These were the first music videos, pre-dating MTV’s birth by over a decade.

In 1985 Rounds formed Radio Express, which to this day handles all aspects of radio for clients worldwide, including format imaging and production, music scheduling and syndication of over 40 programs including “American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest,” “American Country Countdown” and “The World Chart Show.”

[jon]

From Wikipedia, some earlier background:

ref. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Rounds

Early years

After first entering the broadcasting profession at the campus radio station of Amherst College in Massachusetts in the late 1950s, Rounds then worked at WINS (AM) in New York City as a newsman in 1959 before agreeing to travel to Honolulu with the station's general manager to work at station KPOI. While in Hawaii, Rounds—hoping to gain publicity for his new position as a disc jockey—set the world record for sleeplessness. The period of 260 hours awake was attained while Rounds was sitting in a department store window display. The record was eclipsed in 1964 by San Diego high school student Randy Gardner. Rounds became a regional celebrity following the stunt, and eventually rose to lead the station as program director.

KFRC San Francisco

Ron Jacobs had been program director at KPOI before moving to KHJ in Los Angeles under influential radio programmer Bill Drake. Drake was seeking to install his signature Boss Radio format in the Bay Area in 1964; Jacobs recommended Tom Rounds for the position at KFRC in San Francisco. While at KFRC, Rounds began promoting large multi-act concerts to benefit charity and gain publicity for the station and the bands it featured. After holding the Beach Boys Summer Spectacular at the Cow Palace in 1966, Rounds and KFRC conceived of a large outdoor festival featuring a fair atmosphere similar to the popular Renaissance Pleasure Faire. The KFRC Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival was held in the second weekend of June 1967 at Mount Tamalpais State Park in Marin County, California, to support the Hunters Point Child Care Center. Featuring Jefferson Airplane, The 5th Dimension, The Doors and many other acts, it drew nearly 60,000 attendees. The Fantasy Fair produced by Rounds is considered the first rock festival in history, preceding the more well-known Monterey Pop Festival by one week.

Rounds left KFRC in the Fall of 1967; his decision to move beyond the restrictions of AM radio was documented on the front cover of the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine, with the headline "Tom Rounds Quits KFRC" on the upper right beside a large photograph of John Lennon.

[Neumann Sennheiser]

I remember the cover.



Tom Rounds back in black and white days - 1966.



Tom Rounds somewhat more recently.

[hagopian]

Legend is too small a word.

By any measure, Rounds was a giant. Wow, we are losing a lot of superb people. Sad.

The iconic Lennon cover.

It doesn't seem like 48 years.....holy cow.....