Art Miller
The station was on the air daily from 5am and signed off nightly at 1am.
5-7 Bob Wilson
7-10 Doc Johnston
10-1 Ken McGavin
1-3 Don Lindsey
3-7 Rich Teeters
7-1 Dave Elrod
The post summarizing football season radio programming served to remind all of us how for fortunate The University of Tennessee has been when it comes to the outstanding quality of its play-by-play announcers. I recall the booming pipes of George Mooney and the perfectly contrasting tones of John Anderson's analyses. Their timing was beyond perfect..."outstanding" is too weak of a term. But, they were classics. When you heard them, you knew who it was, instantaneously. Ditto for Ward. And Kesling. And Keith.
Gone forever, I suspect, are most of their broadcasts. (I hope I'm wrong). It would be wonderful if the Vol Network folks might dig back in their archives and prepare a "Great Vols Plays" program. Perhaps Mooney's PBP calls and Anderson's analysis could be synced with historical game footage.
A footnote of this reminiscing of great things Big Orange. At WBIR-AM in the late 1960s, Promotion Manager Walt Martin teamed up with WBIR-TV Sports Director Jim Holiday to prepare 60 to 90 second radio drop-ins called "Coach Haddekick Predicts" (pronounced "had-to-kick"). Ten to twelve comedic bits were prepared for each football season weekend. They featured Martin as the coach answering Holiday's questions about, and predicting the winners of, upcoming SEC and national games.
Martin is a major unacknowledged influencer of the 1960s and 1970s Knoxville radio. I'd like to share some memories of his impactful work in another post.
Art Miller
Page 3...101 found an old newspaper article-
How many 18-year-olds got hired by Bobby Denton to be a WIVK disc jockey...I did and am proud of it!
I saw this post and wanted to share it, from Jeff Jarnigan- (he was asked what was Bobby's stogie of choice)
"According to the cigar shop he and I shared, he smoked Oliva's. Bobby wanted to finish his PA in Neyland at 50 years. He made it 48. When I became PA after him I made an agreement with UT to use Bobby in pregame for at least 2 more years to get to his 50 in the stadium. I also laid one of his brand cigars across the PA mic for games in those years. Seemed like the right thing to do to honor him. He was the best and a true character."
In 1976 WKGN had a format change from Top 40 to Album Rock and Kerry became Keith Lambert, manning the overnight show.
A few years later he became part of the new AOR format at WBIR-FM later rebranded as WIMZ.
In the 80s Kerry's career grew enormously from PD to station manager at WIMZ.
Plucked away by WIVK owned Dick Broadcasting, Kerry headed to Birmingham, he's still there, and he was a key executive in that market with DBC, which was later purchased by Citadel.
Dan is seen here with writer/singer Worley Max (McKinney) who took several songs to the top of the WIVK weekly survey.
"Coach McKinney" was a teacher and coach at Bearden Junior High and with his never-ending music passion he wrote, and recorded hit songs such as Don't Break Me Easy and How Long Will You Love Me This Time. In the late 80s the music city was calling so Worley packed up and planted his musical flag in Nashville. He's still writing and performing these days.
Check out his current radio world at Global Radio Daytona.
