Ralph Y. Michaels, radio aficionado

If you came here from our home page or Features page, you may have bypassed the story of the connection between small Central Texas record label Sonobeat, founded in 1967, and Austin’s KAZZ-FM, which ceased operations in January 1968. Briefly, Sonobeat was spawned from the live remote broadcasts that were regular features on KAZZ-FM in the mid-’60s. The broadcasts featured local rock, jazz, and folk artists as well as visiting bands and singers from around the world, performing at a wide variety of Austin nightclubs. These broadcasts included the Sweetarts, Lee Arlano Trio, Lavender Hill Express, and Bach-Yen, all of whom recorded commercial releases for Sonobeat. Coincidentally, at the same time, Ralph Y. Michaels, then in his early 20s, was serving in the military and stationed in Austin.

During his military tour in Austin, Ralph, an avid radio fan, used an open-reel tape deck to record hour after hour of airchecksAn aircheck is a recording of a radio program made for archival purposes. An aircheck can be used by a station to compare its content and “sound” to that of other radio stations in the same market, by deejays to demonstrate their on-air talent, and by radio aficionados to preserve memories of favorite stations and deejays. of his favorite local radio stations. These included Austin’s #1 AM radio station, KNOW, which played top 40 hits, “good music station” KHFI-FM, and the eclectic KAZZ-FM.

Austin’s KAZZ-FM began playing top 40 music in October ’64 – an aberration in FM radio at the time &– but it also continued the block programming format it had started in 1963 that featured the nationally syndicated hour-long Grand Ole Opry country music program, a Spanish-language music hour, and pop standards, Hollywood and Broadway showtunes, and jazz, folk, and R&B blocks in addition to rock ’n’ roll. The Sonobeat archives contain a few KAZZ air checks, but the vein of gold – Ralph’s personal air check archives &– was never publicly available until Ralph generously gifted them to Sonobeat Historical Archives. Ralpoh’s collection even includes an air check of Sonobeat co-founder Rim Kelley, whose rock program anchored weekday afternoons on KAZZ-FM in the mid-’60s, working an evening shift on KNOW several months after KAZZ shut down in 1968. In addition to a sampling of air checks he made of KAZZ programs and live remote broadcasts, we’re pleased to present a selection of Ralph’s candid KAZZ-FM control room snapshots.

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Ralph’s KAZZ-FM airchecks

Although Ralph’s airchecks of KAZZ-FM and other radio stations he listened to were full uninterrupted recordings of an hour or more of the station’s programming, the airchecks we present here are ’scoped, or “gutted”, recordings. A ’scoped aircheck clips out most of the music, focusing instead on the elements that differentiate one station from another and demonstrate a station’s “personality”: the deejays’ patter, station ID jingles, local commercials, and news. So, a typical hour in real time ends up telescoped into an 8-10 minute aircheck.

First up, we present an excerpt from perhaps the rarest aircheck in Ralph’s collection, KAZZ’s program director Sam Hallman hosting a remote broadcast of Austin’s iconic psychedelic rock band, The 13th Floor Elevators, from the New Orleans Old World Night Club in downtown Austin. This broadcast was out of character for Sam, who hosted the weekday showtunes and pop standards blocks on KAZZ, a far cry from the psychedelic sounds of the Elevators. Don’t blame the poor quality of the air check on Ralph, who typically made mike-feed airchecks – he simply placed his tape recorder microphone in front of his radio’s loudspeaker. Instead, blame the poor quality on KAZZ. For its live remote broadcasts, the station connected from the remote location to the station’s main studio via a class “C” telephone line, with quality just a little bit better than that of a standard voice land line, and a simple 2-channel microphone mixer. The microphone that picked up the live act was usually 20 or more feet away from the stage and pointed upward to minimize crowd noise. The resulting broadcasts &– especially of rock groups – were invariably muffled and distorted.

Next, we present Ralph’s aircheck of KAZZ’s eclectic nighttime deejay Kirk Wilson, whose program merged folk (under the umbrella moniker Folkways), blues, jazz, and a bit of whatever struck his fancy, including poetry and stream of consciousness patter. Today, Kirk owns Bazzirk, Inc., a business to business marketing agency based in Austin, and writes award-winning fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.

Following Kirk’s aircheck, for a change of pace, we present Ralph’s KNOW air check of Sonobeat co-founder Rim Kelley, who held down the weekday afternoon and Saturday rock ’n’ roll blocks on KAZZ-FM from October 1964 to January 1968. In March ’68, two months after KAZZ shut down, Rim took a late-night weekend slot on KNOW, Austin’s #1 AM top 40 station. Ralph marked this air check July ’68.

The fourth aircheck is composed of a series of excerpts from one of KAZZ-FM program director Sam Hallman’s Sunday afternoon programs. Mild-mannered, witty, and dulcet voiced, Sam mixed pop standards, upbeat showtunes, rock ballads, and an occasional folk tune, creating a pleasing and tasteful pastiche. Ralph noted that this air check was made in June 1967.

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