PLEASE REMEMBER THAT IF YOU BUY FIVE ITEMS AT ONE TIME FROM MY STORE, THE SIXTH IS FREE, SAVING YOU AT LEAST 20% ON YOUR TOTAL PRICE.  JUST EMAIL ME THROUGH THE EBAY MESSAGE SYSTEM WITH YOUR CHOICE AND IT WILL COME TO YOU WITH YOUR PURCHASES.  ALSO REMEMBER THERE IS ONLY ONE SHIPPING CHARGE OF $2.99 WHETHER YOU BUY ONE OR A HUNDRED!  I WILL WORK HARD TO SAVE YOU MONEY WITH QUALITY PRODUCTS YOU WILL LOVE

 Hello Again, friends of great music!    This show, for all you vinyl lovers, and there are a bunch out there judging by the number of you that have responded to my rare and old vinyl radio shows, is a rare vinyl that you will rarely find on eBay.  

It is called THE GREAT SOUNDS  and aired on the UNITED STATIONS RADIO NETWORK. 

It was a weekly four hour show with every show focused on a particular theme or artist with multiple interviews and hosted by Ray Otis.  

Ray Otis is a music legend.  Here is a brief history:

In the decade of the 1960s, one radio station stood out in St. Louis, and an assessment some 40 years later finds that it still stands out in the memories of many people. Anyone who lived through those years understood the later premise behind George Lucas’ film “American Graffiti.” The radio - or more importantly one specific radio station - played a big role in the lives of teenagers in just about every market. Everyone listened to that station, and the disc jockeys were real people who became friends to the listeners. In St. Louis, that station was KXOK.

KXOK was owned by Todd Storz as part of his chain of AM stations known for their rock and roll formats. A stroll down memory lane, compliments of station vet Dick Ulett, who now owns Clayton Studios: Mort Crowley, Danny Dark, Ron Riley, Peter Martin, Robert R. Lynn, Bob Shea, William D. Rogers, Dan Allison, Johnny Rabbitt, Don “Stinkey” Shafer, Richard Ward Fatherly, Nick Charles, Bruno J. Grunyon, William A. Hopkins, Big Ears Bernard, Steven B. Stevens, Bobby Shannon, Delcia Corlew, Chickenman, News at 55, Radio Park, “The station with the happy difference.”

Ray Otis

Ray Otis was the station’s program director, coming to St. Louis in 1962 at the age of 24. Manager Bud Connell had “opened” the station, and it was Otis’ job to move it through the next stages of evolution. “There was magic at KXOK like no other place I’ve seen,” he says.

“Everything just fell together. The synergy was incredible.” The station was located in a small grove of trees at 1600 North Kingshighway, which it dubbed “Radio Park.”

Across the street was the old Parkmoor. There was an old house on the property and the studios were built as an addition, with the a room in the house serving as the reception area and the rest being used for storage. Out in front, facing Kingshighway, were the 3’ high green letters “KXOK” which had graced the side of the building it had previously inhabited, the old Star-Times Building downtown.

KXOK dj’s on the Radio Park sign

Jim Bafaro, a former radio journalist here and now working at Boeing in public relations, remembers being confused as a five-year-old: “As a kid, I heard the term ‘Radio Park’ and assumed there was some little park somewhere with a big microphone in it.”

Richard Ward Fatherley was KXOK’s production director, and he often did substitute work by doing dj shifts on the air. Like Ray Otis, Fatherley joined KXOK at the age of 24, coming to St. Louis in 1964. “In 1966,” he says, “The Pulse radio ratings research group completed its ranking of the nation’s top five most-listened-to radio stations. Two of them were in St. Louis; KMOX, the CBS-owned “At Your Service Station,” and KXOK, the Storz-owned Top 40 station.

“This ratings battle between two differently programmed radio stations signaled the beginning of the end for the reign of the AM “Rockers” and a green light for the AM “Talkers.”

Both Fatherley and Otis remember how KXOK capitalized on the construction of the Gateway Arch, tying in its dial position with the monument’s dimensions (630 Kc, 630’ high, 630’ wide). Fatherley notes the station “took advantage of every opportunity to embrace the structure in its sales brochures, business cards, promotional pieces and listener contests.”

Otis remembers the day an audition tape was played featuring the work of a young entertainer named Don Pietromonaco. “I’d never heard anything like it. We had a fairly rigid framework for our jocks, but when we brought in Don and made him ‘Johnny Rabbitt,’ things loosened up. Todd Storz used to say some guys need the framework of a format. Others don’t. The proof is in the ratings. We turned ‘Johnny’ loose, and he owned nighttime radio in St. Louis.”

And then there was the time a guy drove up to Radio Park towing a speedboat behind his car. Lou Cooley told the station’s manager he’d like to make a deal. If KXOK would allow him to paint the station’s call letters on the side of his boat, he’d win a high profile boat race. He kept his word, and an interesting relationship was born. “Lou ran a laboratory shuttle service,” Otis says, “and he had a telephone in his car. He’d phone the station with traffic reports and we’d put him on the air.” Otis also put the station’s janitor on the air. “Eddie Simpson, the janitor, lived in the house behind the studios. Sometimes when he’d be cleaning in the studios I’d sit him down at the mic and we’d talk.”

Robert R. Lynn, who was news director in those years, has fond memories of his experience there. “We were actually gatherers, writers, editors, not just news readers like many other stations. The newscasts were full of gizmos, echoes and beeps so they’d fit the format. It was a bunch of people having a good time.”

And those good times sometimes took the form of pranks. Lynn remembers a psychology student at Washington University who sent the station a press release. The student had constructed a body-length black bag (cutting out two holes so he could see out) and he wore it all over campus, recording reactions of other students. The young man scheduled a press conference in which he would detail his findings. “Steven B. Stevens’ mom sewed up five more bags and five of our guys went to the campus wearing them. Each of our guys held a press conference claiming to be the student, blowing away any chance he had of getting attention.”

Then there was the time Fatherley came back from vacation and had to do an air shift. He conducted the station’s “Bingo” game without reading all the instructions, giving out six numbers at once instead of the usual single number. As Lynn tells it, hundreds of “winners” blew out the phone circuits and other multitudes drove to Radio Park, gridlocking North Kingshighway. For the rest of his St. Louis stint, Fatherley became the target of Ray Otis’ ribbing, enduring shouts of “Bingo” at unexpected moments.

A young lady who began her on-air stint as a sponsor’s spokesperson has fond memories of KXOK. Delcia Devon (later Corlew) was the voice of Famous- Barr beginning in 1964. She remembers the brilliance of Don Pietromonaco, who was known to his listeners as Johnny Rabbitt. “I would be recording my commercials in the production studio and Don would come in to record his Bruno drop-ins. He’d just sit down and start talking in his Bruno voice, doing wild tracks. Later, when he was on the air, he’d carry on a conversation with those recordings. I was amazed how he could remember what he’d said on the tapes.”

Everyone interviewed for this article gives the credit for KXOK’s success to one man, Bud Connell, the operations manager. “He pulled the right strings and brought in the right people,” says Robert R. Lynn. Ray Otis says “Bud was the best market opener I’ve ever seen.”

Connell came to St. Louis from Miami. “Storz gave me carte blanche,” he says. Arriving in July of 1961, he monitored the market for a month. “KXOK had 4% of the market while WIL had over 20%. KXOK’s jocks were Ken Reed, Peter Martin, Jack Elliott and Don Shafer. Bob Shea and Robert R. Lynn were the newsmen. My first job was to brighten the sound and beef up the news. I brought in Shad O’Shea and Danny Dark as jocks and David D. Rogers and Steven B. Stevens for news. Our news department had four of the biggest voices in radio.”

“It was a bunch of people having a good time,” says newsman Lynn, “and the jocks made as much on the side from personal appearances as they did on the air.”

Connell says he brought in outstanding people, but his main criterion boiled down to a simple requirement: “I looked for a capacity to entertain and the intelligence to entertain without using bad taste. The big stars in radio today wouldn’t even have been considered for jobs on KXOK. Don Pietromonaco, for example was the ultimate Johnny Rabbitt; the defining Johnny Rabbitt. He was an absolute entertainer.”

The veterans of KXOK all say it was the finest job in their careers. “In a word,” says Robert R. Lynn, “it was fun!” Delcia Corlew says “It was unique, exciting. There was a lot of discovery in it, a chance for all of us to learn about ourselves and our listeners.” Connell says “My nickname around the station was ‘Mr. Kx-OK. Those were heady days for a young man who loved playing radio. I am convinced the old KXOK would blow away all of today’s broadcast wunderkind, including those in the smut-filled control rooms of the present day audio-porn purveyors. And wouldn’t it be fun to do it all over again?” The comment by Ray Otis says it all: “In retrospect it was almost euphoric. I’d go back in a heartbeat.”

 It was an enormously popular show in its day AND WAS A LIMITED EDITION SERIES WHICH MADE IT EVEN RARER.

The show came with  cue sheets in excellent condition and the lp itself looks like it was just pressed.

 This show is in mint new condition played only on its date of network national broadcast and then professionally stored since.    It is a rare find and belongs in your most special collection.    

 It is an enthralling show that will captivate you.  You will be disappointed when it is over. 

  This show AIRED ON DECEMBER 21, 1984 AND FEATURED A TRIBUTE TO THE CARPENTERS AND THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS SPECIAL  WITH POP  MUSIC, CURRENT INTERPRETATIONS OF CLASSIC  SONGS, AND MULTIPLE INTERVIEWS WITH SOME OF THE BEST ARTISTS IN MUSIC.  

The songs are as listed on the cue sheet in the listing picture.  

CHRISTMAS SPECIALS ARE THE RAREST AND MOST SOUGHT AFTER BY COLLECTORS AND COMBINED WITH A TRIBUTE TO KAREN CARPENTER MAKES IT EVEN MORE SPECIAL.

THERE ARE 12 INTERVIEWS WITH RICHARD CARPENTER,

 INTERVIEWS WITH ANDY WILLIAMS, AL HIBBLER,  TEX BENEKE, AND TERESA BREWER, 

 35 CHRISTMAS SONGS FROM THE BEST POP ARTISTS IN MUSIC INCLUDING JUDY GARLAND, BING CROSBY, PERRY COMO, LIONEL BARRYMORE, SPIKE JONES, JOHNNY CASH, AND  ELVIS PRESLEY, 

 A SINATRA FAMILY TRIBUTE, 

12 CARPENTERS SONGS 

AND 4 OTHER SONGS  

    Remember, when you buy this show, not only will you own the tunes but also interspersed between songs is fascinating commentary on the artists and songs.    Also, keep in mind that this and all  shows are not just about the music - the music can be found anywhere.  It is the mixture of great music and great announcing that makes it so entertaining.  

As well, it is a piece of radio history.  

You just aren't going to find these shows anymore.  Think of what they will be worth in a few years!  (IF you wanted to sell.)  I am selling to share with other music lovers what I was able to get at a reasonable price   

 It is a great show and would be a valuable addition to your collection 

Good Luck and God Bless You.