The term Hillbilly used here is designed
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WCKY was in Covington, Kentucky. I guess the WCKY Jamboree was some kind of a barn dance show. The station also had the Liberty Theater Barn Dance at some point.
ReplyDeleteOn the station WCKY was Hank Williams Death Announcement by the DJ Nelson King:
ReplyDeletehttp://vodpod.com/watch/5678441-hank-williams-death-announcement-on-wcky-radio-on-1-1-53
Uncle Hank
WCKY was originally licensed to Covington, KY(hence the call letters) and went on the air in 1929. In the early 1930s it moved its studios across the Ohio River to Cincinnati,Ohio where it was at the time this recording was made. In the 1940s the WCKY Jamboree became the best known hillbilly DJ show in America with Nelson King
ReplyDeleteplaying records from 8:05 to midnight every night. He was voted the top hillbilly DJ in the country for eight consecutive years. Don Davis came along later and DJd from midnight to 1:00 AM after the Jamboree. In 1961 WCKY began broadcasting the live WCKY Ohio Jamboree from Madison Lake Park in London, Ohio with Clay Eager as the emcee.
I enjoyed listening to the Jamboree each night as a teenager but never sent in any penny postcards for any of the advertised products ( one of the first places you could buy paint in a spray can!). I also never understood why, when announcing the address, they would carefully spell out W C K Y. If the listener couldn't handle that, how in the world was he going to spell Cincinnati 1 Ohio?
ReplyDeleteI am looking for a rare bit of information. Back in the late 1950's, my parents would listen to WCKY-AM at night. I was 8 - 9 years old at the time but there was a DJ on this station that used "Steel Guitar Rag" as his theme song. I have been looking for the artist that made the recording that he used because every version I hear now does not match my memory of the one the DJ used. Does anyone have a clue as to who the DJ was or the artist who recorded the theme song.
ReplyDeleteI was a teenager then, and listened to WCKY a lot. The announcers were Nelson King and Don Davis. The music was really pure country. In the 60's, the main DJ was Wayne Raney. The theme song was the version by Spade Cooley's band, and the steel guitar was played by Leon McCauliffe (sp?) It started off the program every night. Then, at 11:15 every night, the same band would play the "Cincinnati Rag" BT (Orlando, FL)
DeleteBack in the forties, WCKY was my favourite. I could only hear the station at night when the signal skipped. I am in Windsor, Canada, across from Detroit, Michigan.
ReplyDelete