Blast from Your Past – Book 2 1960s, The Swinging Sixties Excerpt 1: Shotgun Tom Kelly
Across the country they’re swingin’ ‘n’ swayin’ but in sunny Cali we add a little jiggy to it at BFYP 84.8-FM.
But wait … hey, hey you … Get Off of My Cloud! ♪
Shotgun
Tom Kelly
aka Tom Irwin
Best known at KCBQ/San Diego
and K-EARTH 101/Los Angeles
It isn’t a stretch to say Shotgun Tom Kelly, known to
friends and family as Tom Irwin, is an inspiration behind today’s SoCal classic
Rock & Roll Radio.
Sound a little biased? You betcha. I’ve been Shotgun’s fan since the ‘80s and thrilled to connect with him for a brief bio.
As with so many of the intriguing interviews I’ve compiled, Tom’s story alone, could fill a book. I’ll do my best to entertain you with lively highlights from the life and times of “Shotz,” as he’s known to many.
BFYP follows young Tom Irwin from 1963 at the venerable KDEO in San Diego, up and down the California coast, working with some of our DJs already mentioned, while turning us all on to some groovy music.
“It’s because of mom that I got into radio,” admits Tom.
“Tommy” was about ten when he arrived home from school, to find mom listening to KOGO-AM. A San Diego DJ broadcasting from nearby Oscar’s Drive-In, hyped some giveaway sports tickets, interviewing listeners on the air. She urged him to get on over to the Lemon Grove hangout (it was a sleepy little community east of San Diego around 1961).
Tom resisted but mom persisted and ultimately, “I got on my bike and went down there.” Tom peered through the window of a portable trailer. He was fascinated with the guy in horn-rimmed glasses, fiddling with two record players and a microphone. The disc jockey looked up to see the wide-eyed kid staring through the glass.
He opened the mic and said (Tom lowered his voice with the memory of Frank Thompson), “And we have a young man here who’s looking through our mobile window as we broadcast at Oscar’s Drive-In. Come in here, young man.”
Tom stumbled into the trailer. “What’s your name?”
Recalling his pre-teen falsetto voice, Tom said, “My name’s Tom.”
“Well Tom,” Frank picked up, “what we have here are the L.A. T-Birds coming to San Diego at Westgate Park. You have four passes to go!”
“Oh thank you very much,” nervous Tom said. Slick for a future DJ, huh? That day made an impact on him, though, beyond the sports tickets. “I went home, built my little radio station with extension speakers and that got me started in the biz.”
Tom looked for more places to view DJs in action. At the time, Frank was the easiest, as KOGO’s remote disc jockey. His show went out to listeners every day from different locations, easy access for an eager kid on a bike. Tom pedaled out when he could. “Guess I was a pest,” he confessed.
It wasn’t long before he found another mesmerizing disc jockey to visit, who would become a lifelong friend.
Mentored by Clark Gable of the airwaves
“I had a paper route and used to listen to this guy while I folded my papers. I’d deliver them, with my little transistor radio hanging on my bike, listening to Jack Vincent at KCBQ. (A compelling, BFYP 1950s pioneering DJ.)
“When I finished my route,” said Tom, “I’d go to the studio, knock on the door and Jack would let me in! I’d actually get to go in and see him!”
Jack was a huge influence on young Tom. Once he graduated to cars, you couldn’t keep him away from Jack as he watched him deliver commercials, news, and spin the platters of his favorite songs.
Tom even took future wife, Linda, to see Jack. “She and I used to visit Jack quite often. He had an open-door policy—anybody could walk in—and one night …”
A rather disheveled guy discovered the unlocked door during Jack’s show and asked him what this place was; Jack told him it was a radio station. The guy said, “Oh, okay, I’m outta here.” As he took off, Jack noticed the blood dripping from a gunshot wound.
And yet, Tom still wanted to be a DJ.
In fact, he often visited a favorite kids’ hangout that was legendary as San Diego’s DJ-dreamin’ corner—7th & Ash—KCBQ’s fishbowl studio.
When possible, radio stations across the country would position their digs on a prominent corner so people could peer in and watch the DJs workin’ the turntables. Many a future disc jockey spent their afternoons hanging out, while their idols flipped records.
“It was really neat,” said Tom. “I used to stand on that corner for hours. They had a mirrored ceiling, so as you looked up to the second floor, you could see the DJ’s hands operate the board. I took a picture when I was thirteen years old, with a Brownie camera. And still have it!”
Another BFYP DJ, Neil Ross, also hung out on the famed corner; though he and Tom didn’t know each other at the time. “He has almost the same stories as I do about 7th & Ash,” said Tom. “A lot of radio wannabes would sit there and look up at those guys.”
KDEO, another popular weekend hangout for young Tom, provided a pivotal point in the budding DJ’s life. “‘Sunny’ Jim Price, the program director, used to let me in to watch guys like Ray Willis, Robin Scott, and Tom Schaeffer, the news director—he was quite a guy,” recalled Tom. KDEO was his behind-the-scenes introduction to radio.
Tom soon talked Jim into hiring him to help the jocks with remote (live) locations—he was the roadie. “Back in those days they actually took the turntables, microphone and the teletype machine out there. I ripped off the news from the teletype machine for the disc jockey and greeted people where they were broadcasting.” He started at $1.25 per hour.
Donning his big boy pants
Tom slipped into his “DJ voice.” “That was my first job in radio—at ‘Radio KAY-Dee-Oh!’” Tom listened and learned all through his adolescent years, 1963—1965 at KDEO. And it paid off before he even finished high school.
[Image: KDEO October 24, 1964; Tom learned from DJs (top/bottom, left/right) Robin Scott, Buzz Baxter, Chuck Daugherty, Hal Pickens, Bobby Barnet, and Larry Boyer. BFYP Collection.]
Disc Jockeys who are into the music never listen to just one station, or one type of music. Such is the case with Tom. But back in the early to mid-Sixties, AM was still king, with FM stretching its newborn arms to those looking for something a little different.
“I heard this station from Mexico,” said Tom, “it was called “Rock 95”—this guy, Chuck Johnson was there. He was the program director and general manager, and I heard him on the air, started listening to it. He played soul music.”
Continuing his reverie, Tom’s deep voice was mesmerizing as he described the scene. They boasted a picture window, too, “down at the corner of Logan Avenue, which is in the African-American community,” Tom. Although it was a “really small station” it caught young Tom’s attention. He was still a gofer at KDEO, but auditioned for Chuck who hired him—as a DISC JOCKEY—for XEGM Rock 95. A little-known fact.
Yep—you read it here first, folks. “I always leave this out of my interviews,” said Tom. But he confessed that his first on-air radio job was in a tiny station with one turntable and two tape machines—one to put promos on and another to record shows. And with only shades of Rock crossovers.
[Image: Chuck Johnson played XEGM Rock “95” Soul, October 24, 1966. BFYP Collection.]
“We had to talk in between putting records on,” said Tom. “We recorded our shows from that studio and Chuck would truck it over the border and they’d play it back over a Mexican station.”
It was 1966 and Tom was still just a high school kid with big dreams. “I enjoyed myself, but wanted to be at a more professional station—I wanted to be live.”
Facing two years of high school before graduating, he took advantage of vocational work experience and attended school half day, working at stations the other half.
Better to be half-alive than not!
“I quit Rock 95 and went to KPRI-FM—my first live, on the air job,” said Tom. It still wasn’t the Top 40, but he made the most of his debut real radio gig, however small and quirky.
“I remember the year I started there because I recall the big thick albums we played (on A&M Records). They were a professional radio station with a big [control] board and two turntables. I actually got to go on-air and play jazz, and Sergio Mendez, Steve & Edie, and the Brazil 66.”
KPRI stretched Tom’s skills quickly, showing him there’s more to radio than music. Besides public service announcements and airing a Sunday morning Catholic mass that emanated from the local St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Tom learned how to conduct a fun kids’ show.
Sponsored by George’s Wonderful World of Cakes, Tom was a natural with kids. “It was the Uncle Tommy show,” he said proudly. “I got to do a couple of hours live. One hour playing kids’ music; and I would record my mom doing stories as ‘Aunt Betty’ and play them on the show.”
This experience served him well later, when he hosted children’s television shows in the Seventies.
Though thoroughly excited about learning everything possible while on the job, Tom longed to catch up to the Rock & Roll radio stations. “To get a job at the Rock and Roll stations,” said Tom, “which were all directional antennas, you had to have a first-class radio license.”
Mind you, the radio schools didn’t teach you how to be a DJ—but you learned more than you needed to be an engineer. And the big time Rock and Roll stations wanted guys and gals who could be both.
[Image: Courtesy of Tom; dedicated to his books at Ogden’s, circa 1968.]
Tom chose William B. Ogden Radio Operational Engineering School in Burbank, California, to prepare him for the big gigs. In an intense curriculum, by 1969, he followed graduates like Robert W. Morgan, known on both coasts; and popular TV game show host, Bob Eubanks, who began in radio.
Fresh out of school, it was a “now what?” moment. “I wanted to be a “boss jock,” said Tom, bursting into a jingle. “Boss Radio … 136 KGB! I wanted to work at KGB in the worst way.”
Tom soon discovered KPRI jocks weren’t on KGB’s acquisition radar. “They hired from stations like KACY/Ventura “Boss of the Beach,” KYNO/Fresno, KDEO/San Diego, and KMEN/San Bernardino—“K-MEN, one-twenty-nine …” another jingle from Tom. So he set out to make a name in radio … and he did one helluva job of it.
Managing to keep his real name as he rose in the biz, he loved being just plain ol’ “Tom Irwin” through the end of the Sixties. Of course, we know that changed. Next decade’s tales share his fun name game story, and rise to the top of the DJ ladder, where he stayed, for a lifetime career in radio.
Today: Tom and lovely wife, Linda, spearheaded a campaign in 2010 that resulted in a majestic monument for KCBQ, San Diego's historic and beloved Top 40 station. You’ll learn about Tom’s multiple stints at KCBQ in the Psychedelic Seventies. Tom’s lengthy and venerable career in Radio and TV garnered numerous awards that includes 2013’s Hollywood Walk of Fame Star.
After several years at K-EARTH/Los Angeles, weekending home in his San Diego, Tom retired as their official radio Ambassador in 2015. Of late, he simply enjoys the fruits of retirement, and special “appearances” around the radio dial.
And in 2024, Tom finally published his own book of memoirs. Go now and enjoy his full-length, fantastic and fun memories!
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