In the mid seventies I lived in San Francisco, where one of the many splendors was the thriving jazz scene. It was a joy to tune into KSFO and listen to Jazzbeau Collins, coming from The Purple Grotto.
You can hear his theme song here and one of his great broadcasts:
Jazzbeau Broadcast
and more are here in the Bay Area Radio Museum, where you will be welcomed into Jazzbeau’s Purple Grotto.
Bay Area Radio Museum
You're going to meet a real cool character.
This is from Mark Simon’s obituary for Jazzbeau in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1997:
An Ode To Ultrahip Jazzbeaux
Radio guy Al Collins Made Listeners Feel Cool
The nighttime was really the only time to hear Al Collins. He was soft and gentle and soothing and cool like a thumbnail moon.
He passed away this week after a lifetime in Bay Area and New York City radio. When I knew him best, and I knew him only as a listener, he was the night guy on KSFO.
That's when KSFO was the world's greatest radio station -- so sophisticated, so full of personality that it's hard to believe there really was such a place on the airwaves.
It was the time where we went from the beatniks to the hippies, and a lot was going on that could make you feel disoriented and estranged.
A lot of people were challenging the way things were, and it wasn't always comfortable.
But then Jazzbeaux would come on at night and make it feel all right.
He was reassuring and welcoming.
Thanks to the spotlight Spocko has shone on the KSFO of today you can see and hear how over a period of thirty years this radio station has descended from "the world’s greatest radio station" to the epitome of hate speech radio.
One of the greatest San Franciscans was Herb Caen. Here’s what this Pulitzer Prize winner had to say about KSFO radio in 1995:
FRIDAY FISWRAP
Herb Caen
Friday, January 13, 1995
JUST ASKING: Do you think the idea of lynching liberals is funny? Michael Spearman does. Who he? One of the new voices of reason on KSFO. His slot is 6-9 p.m. Sundays and last Sunday, in his self-appointed role as ``Sheriff of the Republican Party,'' he suggested ``lynching a few liberals.'' Yes, Spearman has a daytime job: He's a detective with the El Cerrito Police Department. On the phone yesterday, he chuckled, ``Out of context, man, out of context.'' So what was the context?
``As their Sheriff, I want to lead the people against their enemies so, y'know, let's lynch a few liberals and have some fun.''
Another part of the context: this man who thinks lynching is fun is an African American. About Assemblyman Paul Horcher, the former Republican who voted for Willie Brown as Speaker, ``Sheriff'' Spearman charged last Sunday: ``What Horcher did was treason and the penalty for treason is death'' . . . Two years ago, by the way, detective Spearman sued the El Cerrito Police Department for ``racial slurs.'' So you know he's a sensitive guy.
PRESSING ON: As you may have read, KSFO, which is owned by KGO, decided to go ``hard Right'' a couple of wks. ago -- as though what was on previously was so frightfully liberal. ``Conservative is where the ratings are,'' a station exec explains, but what's conservative about rabble-rousing, bald-faced lies and incitements to violence?
I realize that trash stations dote on printed reactions such as this and that the best policy is to ignore them, but this civilized city deserves better. A first-time visitor who turns on KSFO -- it has the coveted top-of-the-dial position -- may well wonder if he has strayed into redneck territory by mistake.
I also take umbrage at the besmirching of a once-respected set of call letters. KSFO may never have been ``The World's Greatest Radio Station'' -- that was Don Sherwood being tongue-in-cheeky -- but with such talents as Sherwood, Jack Carney, Dan Sorkin, Carter B. Smith, Terry McGovern, Aaron Edwards and others, it had a true San Francisco flavor. Now the taste is bitter.
God bless you, Herb. You were spared the years when KSFO went from a bitter taste to a poisonous one. As the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee said in a 1995 letter:
This sort of violent speech should be repugnant to all Americans. And there is clearly a connection between such hateful diatribes and the escalation of violence that our country has experienced.
It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to work to end this uncivil discourse before more innocent lives are lost. Today I am writing to urge everyone to speak out against those who threaten the civility of our society. Our voices are stronger than theirs if we make them heard.
The reason I am just one of the legion of bloggers who have taken up the cause in the letter-writing campaign to KSFO advertisers is that hate speech is not an American value, not the idiom of diverse community, not acceptable nowhere nohow.
"At noon Friday, KSFO will pre-empt regular programming to allow four KSFO personalities cited in Spocko's e-mails to answer questions on-air about the controversy from the public, bloggers and media. "I don't tell people what to say, but I do think there will be some mea culpas there," KSFO programming manager Ken Berry said. SF Gate
Mea culpa makes it all better?
So you can go out and do it again?
isn't that what Bush was trying to say last night?
Although Disney was mentioned today’s SF Chronicle article, the mea culpa needs to extend to ABC & Disney.
While the advertisers are just selling their products in the #4 AM radio SF market... it's ABC & Disney that are selling the ideology.... through films like Disney's "America's Heart and Soul" That’s the film Melanie Morgan of KSFO was pushing:
After being approached by the Walt Disney Corporation (KSFO's owner), Melanie Morgan of KSFO conducted a high-profile screening of Disney's "America's Heart & Soul" -- "a pro-American alternative to (Michael) Moore's hate-filled diatribe"
In the seventies and eighties I lived in San Francisco where I used to listen to JAZZBEAU COLLINS on KSFO Radio... he was the very height of civilized manners... and wow what a jazz feast... And I used to read Herb Caen in the San Francisco Chronicle. He was Mr. San Francisco... cultivated, savvy, humorous. Truly they would rise up from the grave to protest what has become of that station today.
For all the reasons that Spocko has given to protest, I add this one:
Hate speech is NOT a San Franciscan thing to do.