Remembering 9-11-01...101 took this picture many years ago!"The Jim Donovan promo air check for "Disco 13" reminded me of when WKGN became Disco 13. I was working at the station at the time, 1978, I think, and we knew something was coming that was very different -- you know how it is when the consultants show up -- but nobody would tell us what the new format was going to be until the first day. Kerry Lambert played the first record to kick off the new format. "What's it's gonna be?" I asked him. "Push in the damn bush," he grumped, and fired it off. Kerry was referring to the memorable and ever so tasteful "Push, Push, In The Bush" by Musique. Okay, it had a good beat, high production value and you could dance to it. You were required by law to dress up like a disco monkey and dance. But Lambert, an old rock 'n' roller at heart, really loved the Album Oriented Rock format the consultants had euthanized and wasn't all that crazy about Disco. But quit radio? What? And leave show business? Turned out the old 'KGN fans weren't too crazy about the change either. Someone set fire to the station van. The receptionist, a very nice and gentle soul, was in tears just about every day after suffering the nasty and hateful phone calls coming in like mortar rounds from the "disco sucks" contingent. The prevailing fantasy running through the programming staff was reliving the movie "FM," in which a rock station's format got hijacked by consultants so the DJs rebelled, took over the station and went free form. I remember the format change was only a moderate success for the sales staff, but they soldiered on until at last the format and the dance craze came to a merciful end." (Tom Jester)
"After being retired from WSM in '03 I traveled a bit and did some commercial work. Several years ago I moved back to the old hometown...Chattanooga. I now have satellite TV with all the sports packages. That's about it Art..Thanks for remembering.." (Allen Dennis)