Jack Vincent Special Tribute – Swinging Sixties

Rock & Roll Heaven +2

As promised, below is BFYP’s Swinging Sixties tribute to Jack Vincent, KCBQ/San Diego DJ extraordinaire, who made his way to Rock & Roll Radio Heaven Sunday (January 29^th). He was a feisty 99.

After the first tribute posted January 30th (1950s), it was learned he made the trip that day with Herb Oscar Anderson (88), a popular but reluctant Rock Radio DJ for WABC/New York. RIP, fellas.

Jack’s interview for the BFYP books (in Shotgun Tom Kelly’s infamous pool room) was rambling, but delightful. I hope you enjoy his excerpt from Book 2, The Swinging Sixties 1960-1969 (to publish in eBook format this month). Leaving legacy vignettes for pioneering Rock & Roll Radio DJs …

We’re playin’ the hits at BFYP-FM! As time goes by, no more kiss-is-just-a-kiss tunes, because frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn …

Let’s have Fun, Fun, Fun … ♪ oh no … daddy took the T-bird away … and … no! Not the transistor radio!

Jack Vincent

1917 ~ 2017

Best known at KCBQ/San Diego, California

Jack is the Daddy-O of the late night show. “I worked twenty-seven years there (1955-1982), during their ‘glory days,’” said Jack, “and on air most of that time (1955-1967).” Jack’s tenure at KCBQ is still an unbroken record.

For thirteen years on the night shift, Jack’s soft tones soothed your soul from midnight to six in the morning. As we’ve heard from a few other DJs, the night shift in a radio station can be verrrry interesting.

Jack didn’t broadcast from KCBQ’s famed 7^th and Ash window studio —like, what’s the point—it’s dark. Secluded at its transmitter site in Santee, about ten miles east of San Diego, Jack has some great stories to share about our sexy, swingin’ Sixties.

Jack landed at KCBQ after he chose radio over construction in the 1950s. Suffering with a work-related back injury, he figured being a disc jockey was less dangerous.

Hired as an engineer, for a behind-the-scenes gig, he accidentally became a reluctant DJ and settled comfortably into KCBQ life.

The Clark Gable of the airwaves enjoyed his fortuitous career and a few perks along the way.

Forgive us as we chat randomly—stories may be a little out of chronological order. Our interview took place when Jack was ninety-one years old. Some dates are a little fuzzy, and I suspect some events happened earlier or later on the winding path of Memory Lane; but his stories are no less vibrant. We’ll just tell ‘em as they come …

[Image: The Big KCB ”Q” Survey for December 10, 1961, gave us seven handsome DJs and one … duck?! BFYP Collection]

“A situation developed when Elvis was in town,” began Jack. “San Diego used to have a big skating rink downtown and it was decided to have the Elvis show there. Elvis was to be at the rink by seven o’clock, so the station could broadcast him.

“The system [throughout the evening] was to keep hyping Elvis’ appearance and make you think he was going to be on ‘next’; but next was always some ‘Joe Blow’ performer. [So that’s where our network news television stations got the idea!]

“Finally at ten o’clock that night, Elvis went on, and the place just went wild. Girls were throwing their panties on stage, and screaming and hollering, and sailors were jackin’-off …” I took my eyes off my notepad and looked at Jack with a bit of disbelief at the last part, and he smiled impishly and nodded. “I got this story pretty damn straight from the guy who cleaned the floor the next day!”

Jack was a popular remote location disc jockey and spent many shifts at a hoppin' local hangout. “We had a lot of high-class people coming in at Pat’s Drive-In,” Jack mused. “I’d guide them down to us on El Cajon Boulevard [while they’re listening on their car radios]. We had a salesman from Hershey candy, so I’d have boxes of chocolates [to give away], and the beer man would leave a case. I never knew what I was going to end up with the next morning …” Love those leftovers!

Um, not sure where the beer man came from in a burgers and malts drive-in, and Jack didn’t elaborate; but anything was possible in the mid-Sixties. “It was kind of a fun life,” said Jack. His gently lined face lit up with a grin. “It never acted like a job. It seemed like I was on vacation all the time.”

Vacations in the Sixties, especially in San Diego—much like today—involved summer, alcohol, and skimpy swimsuit-clad bodies, all hours of the day and night. Bikinis became largely accepted in the early 1960s; and well … often swimsuits were optional.

[Image: Clark … I mean, Jack … flashes a randy smile as he spins the vinyls at KCBQ, c. 1963. Courtesy of Shotgun Tom Kelly.]

Betwixt and Bewitched in the Midnight Hour

As we sat together on a sofa at Shotgun Tom Kelly’s home in SoCal, Jack recalled one of his vacation-at-work nights. He’s on the air at KCBQ as usual …

“I never locked the door,” said Jack. “One night a girl knocked on the door and she said, ‘Jack, you sound real sexy on the air. I just wanted to see how sexy you are.’”

Now remember, this is the guy who could take on Clark Gable in a look-alike contest. Surely, she was smitten.

 “She’s got a fifth of whiskey and a bottle of chasers in her hand.” What could he do but invite her in?

“So I’m playin’ the records and I had a tape that I put on sometimes, if I want to take a break about two in the morning. Come two o’clock, I turn around—and I had a divan about like this in my studio—I turn around and there she was, laying without any clothes on.”

Yahoo for summer vacation! Ever the gentleman, the firmly married disc jockey politely invited her to leave.

[Image: What do you think of the resemblance in this cameo mashup?]

During his tenure at KCBQ, Jack’s taste in music ran the gamut from the Big Band Era through Elvis, The Beatles, and what he termed “the New York bunch.”

Though he favored the music of the 1930s, from his youth—something we all do—Rock and Roll had enough tunes that he liked, to make his job enjoyable.

“Early on we played a song with big band sound, like ‘Poor People of Paris,’” said Jack. The American instrumental version of the French song topped radio charts in 1956. It’s reported to be the last #1 chart hit before Elvis’s “Heartbreak Hotel” broke hearts and chart records.

Jack’s radio engineering school training served him well on both ends of his long career. As life does, his role at KCBQ changed around 1967, and he finished his “vacation” with them through 1982, as an engineer.

“When I was a kid Jack used to let me watch him on the air, reading the news and playing the hits on KCBQ.” Shotgun Tom Kelly (in tribute to Jack’s passing, five days earlier; Facebook, February 3, 2017.)

Highly respected in the broadcasting industry, Jack’s name joined other iconic DJs carved into the granite of the KCBQ “Top 40” monument, dedicated at the old transmitter site, in 2010.

Today: Jack shared a few more final words: “In 1982 management decided to drop the union, l

etting all the union men go. I was one … I was sixty-five years old, so it worked out perfect. I retired. Now I don’t do anything … just sit back and have fun.” He did that—complete with cigar, wine, and pool cue in hand, until eleven months shy of his 100^th birthday.

He also had high praise for his best friend and once-coworker, Shotgun Tom Kelly. “Shotgun is the last of the good disc jockeys.” Takes one to know one!

[Image: Jack Vincent, left, Shotgun Tom Kelly, right, celebrating Jack’s 90^th birthday in “Tonight Show” style, 2007. Courtesy of Shotgun Tom.]

Blast from Your Past! Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959.

Special Report from BFYP - Jack Vincent

1917 ~ 2017

San Diego has lost a cherished member of its Radio Disk Jockey family. Jack Vincent (right), who started as an engineer for KCBQ in 1955, passed away over the weekend. Before he retired from KCBQ in 1982, he also helped pioneer its DJ Rock and Roll glory days. (San Diego Radio)

I was fortunate and thrilled to interview Jack in Shotgun Tom Kelly’s (left) infamous pool room, for the BFYP books. Below is the excerpt from Book 1, The First Five Years 1954-1959 (published). I will post his story from the 1960s (Book 2) manuscript (to publish in February), this Friday.

“It never acted like a job. It seemed like I was on vacation all the time.” Jack was a sweet man who will be missed by many.

Excerpt from: Blast from Your Past! Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959

Stoke those memories with the Jitterbug, the Lindy, and bend your body to The Twist! ♪

With a tug of his mustache and a pound of panache, he puts the cool in cat and the deb in debonair …

Jack Vincent

             

Best known at KCBQ/San Diego, California

He could have been Scarlett’s Rhett, dreamy actor Clark Gable, or the suave Errol Flynn, with his trademark pencil-thin mustache.

Jack Vincent is an anomaly in radio. He beat the historically transitory medium and proclaimed himself the “old man” of the radio on KCBQ, San Diego. Jack got his foot in the door in 1955 and never left.

Unlike some DJs with a burning desire to work radio, Jack labored through his youth before setting his sights on the airwaves.

“I was working in heavy construction, about thirty-four years old at the time, and I hurt my back. I thought, well, I can’t do this work anymore, why don’t I find something easy?” Jack and I began his interview side-by-side on a sofa at the home of his good friend, Shotgun Tom Kelly (you’ll meet him in the Sixties).

At ninety-one, the strong, vibrant timbre of his voice belied his age. “Years ago in school, my high school English teacher had a half interest in a radio station. He’d let us go down on weekends and sit in for the guy who was on duty; he’d go downstairs and drink beer while we did the ETs.” (Disks that held commercials and jingles.)

He validated the engineer’s disappearing act as students learning the radio ropes and “it was all public service so it didn’t make too much difference.”

Nursing his back, Jack remembered his brief radio experience as a kid and figured that would be easy enough. He put his Marine Corps G.I. Bill funds to work and enrolled at Frederick H. Spear Radio School in Hollywood. (It’s a different Frederick’s of Hollywood!)

In any new job you have to work the bugs out of your routine. That took on new meaning in Jack’s first radio gig after graduating in the early Fifties. He was hired over the phone by a station in El Centro (California, near the Mexican border), thanks to a tip from his brother-in-law.

Either of those two events—hired over the phone or tip from your brother-in-law—would send most of us running the other way. But winter in the warm southern desert sounded OK to Jack and more of an announcer than a DJ, the work, as he promised himself, was easy.

“I worked until summer time at KXO,” recalled Jack. Come summer, though, El Centro’s agricultural needs required non-stop irrigation, which created a rather unpleasant scene at the studio.

“You couldn’t see through the screen door because it was full of crickets,” Jack recalled. Obviously not the kind often considered a culinary delicacy.

So Jack picked up another gig—over the phone. See what a great voice will do for you? This time he spent a couple of years learning the DJ ropes in a San Bernardino (California) station. Gene Lee at KFXM, hired Jack based on his likability by the office staff. I’ve heard dumber reasons to hire someone!

By the mid-Fifties, much to the chagrin of many women, I’m sure, Jack was married to a lovely lady and they looked wistfully back at San Diego. They needed to go “home.”

You know how sometimes you want something soooo bad, you wish it into reality? (Some business gurus call it “believe and achieve” philosophy.) “Be careful what you wish for,” is a popular admonition that often accompanies the wishful thinking stage.

Jack’s determination to return to San Diego led him to promise the KCBQ program director, “If you need a guy, don’t hire the first guy that comes in. Call me and I’ll be here the next day.”

Wellllll, you know what happened, right? Two weeks later he got the call, “Can you be here Friday?” That was on Wednesday.

“We packed up all of our stuff and moved back to San Diego, with the prospect of getting a job at KCBQ; but I didn’t know if I had the job or not, yet.”

Who could resist jaunty Jack? The PD knew a good thing when he heard Jack’s sample airchecks, and his hiring marked the first of a twenty-seven-year mutual admiration society for Jack and KCBQ.

“This was 1955,” said Jack, “right before Elvis Presley with ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and all that.”

Hired as an engineer, he learned the ins-and-outs of KCBQ, just as it was preparing to step into the broadcasting spotlight. Providing the lights are on …

“We had a big generator,” Jack said, “which we’d use if we lost city power [more common back in those days]. One night after I finished my engineer shift the boss said, ‘I have to congratulate you, Jack, for how quickly you got us on the air after we lost power.’ I said, ‘Well, I’d have got us on the air a lot quicker, but my pipe was out.’”

Accidental DJ …

Originally a “network station,” KCBQ broadcast the syndicated shows and Jack’s initial role was that of an extra engineer. But that same year KCBQ was acquired by Bartell Family Radio, adding it to the already infamous Bartell brothers’ broadcast and publishing empire. Everything soon changed for Jack and the Bartells.

With vision, foresight, and more than a little moxie, general manager, Lee Bartell, switched to the Top 40 music format, severing formerly lucrative network ties. The new Top 40 radio broadcasting, the brainchild of Todd Storz with refining by Gordon McLendon, was catching fire throughout radio and proved to dominate KCBQ’s heyday years.

Jack’s jock break came when the night guy who regularly broadcast remotes, took a vacation. Now you and I both know that’s a vulnerable time for any employee. But if you’ve been screwing up anyway, well, chances are your “temporary replacement” won’t be. Temporary that is.

Pat’s Drive-In on El Cajon Boulevard learned what a difference a DJ makes. Jack’s suspicions that the other DJ hadn’t been doing a great job, were confirmed when he showed up and no one was there! The whole purpose of a radio remote is to attract listeners to the site. Otherwise, why spend the advertising bucks?

He hopped on the air and began inviting his listeners to “come on down.” “I had movie stars, and all kinds of people coming out there. By the time the two weeks were up and the other DJ returned, “Pat” didn’t want any part of him. She wanted me to stay on the remotes. The waitresses [carhops] were making more in tips than I was making.”

Lee Bartell was no dummy. His advertiser was happy. He kept Jack on the night shift—and at thirty-eight years old, Jack became a Rock & Roll Radio DJ for one of the most popular stations in Southern California.

“When I first started out, everything was 78 rpm. 45s came in, and I thought, gee whiz, these little teeny things, how’re we going to cue them up? We didn’t have good turntables to start with. Finally got used to them, then liked them, ‘cause they weren’t so heavy and cumbersome.”

We’ll hear more from our Clark Gable of the airwaves as the Sixties unfold. Trust me, you will want to stay tuned for more Jack Vincent stories … like the naked gal on his studio sofa with the bottle of booze …

Blast from Your Past! Rock & Roll Radio DJs: The First Five Years 1954-1959.

50 Years Ago this Month – January 1967

1967 spun Rock & Roll music on its ear, as the new FM radio stations spun us on our ears. Far out, man.

Sonny and Cher assured us “The Beat Goes On” (up to #13 on the KFRC/San Francisco survey, January 18, 1967), but this year spearheaded the second phase of 1960’s Rock music battle between love and war, with epic, intricate beats.

Not just a little influenced by psychedelia, Rock music rose to new heights—literally and figuratively.

By the end of the month, West Coast counterculture bands had donated their time and music to the first San Francisco Hare Krishna fundraising concert. Historic, not only because of its mind-expanding highs but the incredible, mind-blowing music.

Headlining the Avalon Ballroom for the Mantra-Rock Dance (January 29^th) were Psychedelic Rock innovators, Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, Moby Grape, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. The event also featured LSD advocate, Timothy Leary. Go figure.

Live music and AM radio’s tunes weren’t much in sync, though, as January radio surveys still reflected soft love songs, albeit tinged with an edgier electronic guitar. The Airplane’s “My Best Friend” hit #10 on KFRC’s Big 30 (January 28, 1967), but it was just a hint of their more surrealistic sounds coming up.

Climbing the chart to truly kick off the Psychedelic Rock year, we find The Electric Prunes at #26, admitting, “I Had too much to Dream Last Night.” Yeah, baby.

Thanks to upstart FM stations like KMPX/San Francisco and KPPX/Los Angeles (think Tom and Raechel Donahue) along with live performances, the month, ended turning guitar solos and love ballads into mind-twisting musical experiences.

*And into the night you'll fade, knowing you lost the game | And just how she got her name of | The Snow Queen … ♪

Welcome to January 1967! Happy New Year 50 Years Ago this Month!

Featured Radio Survey: This month I have to go outside the BFYP vintage survey collection. Darn. Can’t believe I don’t have any January 1967 radio charts. However, one of my fave research sites is the Airheads Radio Survey Archives ... what I don’t have, they do … and then some! Enjoy the KFRC/San Francisco Big 30 chart list for January 28, 1967 here; but if you love retro Rock & Roll, you must visit their searchable site. It’s awesome!

Celebrate JANUARY 1967: 50 Years Ago … Rock On!

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* “The Snow Queen” by Roger Nichols & The Small Circle of Friends, #14,January 28, 1967, KFRC/San Francisco Big 30.

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