Sold Date: July 1, 2023
Start Date: June 26, 2023
Final Price: $35.00 (USD)
Bid Count: 1
Seller Feedback: 2041
Buyer Feedback: 92

I will be listing numerous items from the estate of Dan Brennan, a former radio host dj, station manager, concert promoter during the 1960-1980s.

Numerous special LPs and original pre-recorded radio show music reels used at the station will be listed. His library was stored in climate controlled section of his home.

Oct 5th, 1980. 2 LP set. VG+ to Excellent condition.

The Rossington Collins Band was an American Southern rock band founded in 1979 by guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins following the 1977 plane crash which killed three members of Lynyrd Skynyrd, of which both had been members.

Dan was part of the Great Brennan Broadcasting dynasty. He, along with his brothers Bill and Cyril, built WVOK in Birmingham, WBAM (The Big BAM) in Montgomery, WAPE in Jacksonville, FL, and WFLI in Chattanooga into the powerhouse radio stations of the south in the 1960s and 1970s.

“Dan was also legendary in the world of concert promotion, having produced so many "Shower of Stars" multi-act shows, and was part of bringing the Beatles for an appearance in Jacksonville, Florida.” James Spann

K-99 brought to Birmingham its first fulltime "album rock" format (or, as it's known in radio industry lingo, AOR - Album Oriented Rock) when it began broadcasting for the first time on December 6, 1976.

Dan Brennan - K-99's Station Manager - was quoted in the December 1976 News article as saying, "Typically a listener who is 'into' music calls, tells how much he likes the large amount of music played and appreciates the elimination of 'cute' comments by the Djs."

As a matter of fact, K-99 was the first station in Birmingham to use a technology in widespread use (and misuse) today: voice-tracking!   That's right, the announcers of K-99 prerecorded most of their breaks and programmed the music, which was all recorded to 10-inch reels of tape and sequenced with the commercials, which played from cartridges ("carts" as they were known in the radio biz) stored into slots which loaded into the automation system's player as needed.

Few at the time even knew K-99 was automated.  And the way the format was set up (did you ever notice the jocks never talked over the intros or endings of songs?  Yup, that was intentional!), being pre-recorded took nothing away from the presentation!  You see, FM rock stations of the '70s didn't have a whole lot of personality.  And that was the nature of the beast; the music took center stage.  Besides, FM positioned itself as an alternative to the loud, in-your-face jocks and constant patter and chatter of AM top-40

1979, the Brennan family sold WVOK-AM 690 to Mack Sanders.  The WVOK call letters remained with the AM (largely because of what we'd today call "brand familiarity"), but due to the now separate ownership, new call letters were required for K-99.  WVOK-FM became WRKK.  But nothing changed except for those letters heard at the top of every hour.  K-99 continued to rock and roll, bringing us Jazz Night each week, the nightly Side Show - an album tracked in its entirety, the daily commercial-free music hour known as Avondale Park, the hip news segments called News Blimp, and recordings of rock's best concerts.

And Dan Brennan and company now had just one station on which to concentrate their energies.  1980 was a landmark year for K-99, as the station became nationally recognized because of the Rolling Stone magazine annual Readers' Poll.  There's a category called "Best Radio Station", and that year, K-99 came into the top ten.  And that was competing with all the great album rock stations around the country, such as KSHE/St. Louis, WNEW/New York, KMET/Los Angeles, and others.  K-99 in Birmingham was now regarded as one of the nation's best rock stations.

In 1982, the Brennan family sold K-99 to a company whose stations were all country.  And on August 23, 1982, K-99 bowed out of the rock race to take on WZZK as Birmingham's second FM country station, soon changing its call letters to WQUS, and its nickname to "US-99."

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