Today 101 features WALKER GONE WILD!!! 101's ace contributor Walker Johnson pens a story about Adele, reminisces about Jack Diamond (Coyote Calhoun) and more...
Adele was the second midday person (at WRJZ) and today she is the number ONE anchor at KUSA TV in Denver. She left 'RJZ and went to the old WTVK...later she worked as an anchor in Chicago and then got the deal in Denver. She has been with KUSA for many years.
Jack and I got tossed together at 'KGN by accident. I was doing news and wanted more money so Bob Baron got AP to pay me to be a stringer on the weekends. I was required (by AP) to be at the station on Friday and Saturday nights until 12 phoning in whatever happened locally to the broadcast desk in Nashville. Ten minutes into my first night Jack told me to come on the air with him and from that point on a TON of local news was missed by AP. We didn't do a team show or anything even close to it. My job was simple....Jack would read jokes, get tickled and I would flat get tickled on the air with him. Those were some of the best radio weekends of my life!
As for the story about the phone call to KY..I never heard that..but I can tell you Jack Diamond had offers from the first day he walked into the station. I have been in the control room with him when PDs would call from all over the country and hear him turn them down. He would always say something about the "fit" was not there adding that he never unpacked his Thunderbird (old one but he had one) or all his boxes of jokes. Meaning he was ready to hit the road when the right "fit" came along. As for the box of jokes, he had more than a few. He would use old AP paper boxes because they were long and carry a new one in each night under both arms. Jack Diamond communicated big time and genuinely loved to laugh..never met a jock yet who had those qualities and wasn't successful.
PS...
Clark said his fav jock was Doc? Get this, CP used to "sidekick" for that old man close to the end of his run. Small world tant it?
Keep up the good work...every time I read your blog it reminds me of the cycle of radio. In the beginning you had so much fun you would pay THEM to let you work there...in the end you made too much money to let THEM fire you. Naturally they always did though.