Wolfman Jack

Welcome to Rock and Roll Flashback!  I'm Bill Price, and in this episode I will highlight the career of radio disc jockey Wolfman Jack. He certainly was a unique on air personality with his alter ego, and it’s unlikely that there will never be an other disc jockey like The Wolfman.

All podcasts on the Rock and Roll Flashback Podcast are produced by brothers-in-law Bill Price and "Jumpin' John" McDermott.  The Podcast Theme Song, "You Essay", was written by John.  It was initially recorded by Bill and John on April 1, 2004 with several revisions since then. 
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Transcript

In this episode of Rock and Roll Flashback, I will highlight the career of radio disc jockey Wolfman Jack. He certainly was a unique on air personality with his alter ego, and it’s unlikely that there will never be an other disc jockey like The Wolfman.

Robert Weston Smith was born on January 21st, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York. When he was a child, his parents divorced. In an effort to keep him out of trouble, his father purchased a Trans-Oceanic radio. Robert eventually became a fan of R & B music and of the disc jockeys, which played that style of music, including Douglas “Jocko” Henderson from Philadelphia, Tommy ”Dr. Dive “ Smalls from New York, Alan “Moondog” Feed from Cleveland and “John R” Richbourg from Nashville, who would later become Robert’s mentor.

His first jobs involved selling encyclopedias and Fuller brushes. Then he enrolled in the National Academy of Broadcasting in Washington, DC. After graduating in 1960, he got his first job in broadcasting at WYOU in Newport News, Virginia using the on air name “Daddy Jules”.  The station later changed the format to beautiful music and Robert changed his on air name to “Roger Gordon and Music in Good Taste”. In 1962 he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana and worked at the country music station KCIJ as the station manager and the morning disc jockey using the name “Big Smith with the Records”.

Initially disc jockey Alan Freed used the name the “Moon Dog” which was derived from a New York street musician named Moondog. Freed adapted the name and used howl sound effects in his early broadcasts. At KCIJ, Robert then began to use the name Wolfman Jack and also use sound effects. This alter ego was based on the mannerisms and style of the bluesman Howlin’ Wolf. The nickname Jack was derived from the lingo of the 1950's, such as “Take a page from my book Jack” and “Hit the road Jack”.

Then in 1963 The Wolfman was hired to work at XERF, an AM radio station located in Ciudad Acunia in Mexico, across the border from Del Rio, Texas. Since the station’s power was 250,000 watts, the signal could be heard in most of the US. At night XERF’s signal could be heard as far as Europe. AM stations in the US are limited to 50,000 watts. While at XERF, he developed his unique style, using phrases such as “Who’s this on the Wolfman telephone?”.

XERB was another station located in Rosarito Beach, Baja California, Mexico. However unlike XERF, XERB was only 50,000 watts. The station was branded as the mighty 1090 over Los Angeles. The Wolfman was on XERB from the early to mid 1960's. After eight months at XERB, he relocated to Minneapolis to manage station KUXL. However XERB continued to broadcast The Wolfman from taped shows that were sent to the station.

In 1966 he returned to run XERB and opened an office on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where he recorded his shows and sent tapes to XERB. His venture with XERB was quite lucrative, at one point he was earning $50,000 a week.  However by 1971 the Mexican government was pressured by the Roman Catholic Church to ban Pentecostal preachers, which took away about 80 percent of the station’s revenue. As a result, he went to KDAY AM in Los Angeles which paid him a fraction of the XERB income. Since he had acquired fame, he was able make up some of the lost revenue by editing the XERB program tapes and selling them to radio stations, becoming a syndicated program of Rock and Roll. Eventually they were then sold to oldies format stations. From 1970 to 1986, he appeared on US Armed Forces Radio. During this time he was heard on more than 2000 radio stations, which included 53 countries. 

It was during the time when The Wolfman was on XERB, that George Lucas and screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz listened to him and decided to include The Wolfman in the cast for the film American Graffiti. Gloria and Willard personally visited The Wolfman at KDAY where he was working at the time, to pitch the idea of being in the film, where he would portray himself.  With the success of the film, The Wolfman was hired by WNBC in New York in August 1973, and the station launched a huge advertising campaign, with the prediction that The Wolfman would increase the ratings over their competition at WABC’s disc jockey Cousin Brucie. However, after less than a year had gone by, WNBC hired Cousin Brucie, and The Wolfman returned to California, where he worked on his syndicated radio programs, which aired from 1984 to 1987 on KRLA located in Pasadena, California. However with exposure from the American Graffiti film, he was hired as the host of the late night show The Midnight Special on NBC television.

In 1974, a song titled   “Clap for the Wolfman”, was written by Burton Cummings, Bill Wallace and Karl Winter and recorded by The Guess Who.  The track appeared on the band’s 1974 album titled Road Flood. The song was ranked at number 84 by Billboard magazine’s Top 100 songs of 1974. The song featured The Wolfman doing several voiceovers through out the song. The Wolfman performed the song with The Guess Who on The Midnight Special television show and also on a few live performances with the band.

In 1967, I first heard about The Wolfman from a fellow high school student who told me about a disc jockey that went by the name of Wolfman Jack that broadcast on XERB, a Mexican radio station. I soon then became a regular listener since he was quite different from the typical AM radio disc jockey. Later I found out that the XERB transmitter was located in Rosarito Beach, Baja California. The following year in 1968, I visited the XERB radio station, where I was given a tour of the facility. I was shown the control room where the taped programs were aired utilizing several tape decks. The main part of the building housed two 50,000-watt transmitters. The main transmitter was an RCA unit, about thirty five feet long. A second standby transmitter was a newer model that was about twenty feet long. The tour concluded with going inside the RCA transmitter while it was on the air and seeing the various components. 

In October 1994, I finally got to meet The Wolfman in Washington, DC where he did a weekly radio show at the Hard Rock Café, which was broadcast on a local FM station. During my visit to XERB in 1968, several photographs were taken of the control room and one where I am standing in front of the RCA transmitter. I showed him the photos and he offered to autograph them. He also signed a photo of himself with "To Bill Baby, Rock On!".

Sadly the following year after finishing his show at the Hard Rock Café, he returned to his home in Belvedere, North Carolina, suffered a heart attack and passed away on July 1st, 1995 at the age of 57.

I’ll conclude this episode with The Guess Who’s homage to The Wolfman with their recording of “Clap For The Wolfman”.

This has been a look back at the career of The Wolfman, certainly a unique one of a kind radio disc jockey. And until next time, I’m your host Bill Price.