Larry Kane on the Bayou City History Blog

By far the most read post on this blog on a continuing, daily, weekly and monthly basis, is this post on the Larry Kane Show.  It has accumulated almost 2 and a half times more viewings than any other post and also has accumulated the most comments.

Perhaps because of the recent passing of Dick Clark, to whom Kane was often compared, J. R. Gonzales'  has posted this week about Kane in his Bayou City History blog in the Chronicle with a couple of pictures from the Chronicle files and some excerpts from interviews.  Of course, of great interest will be all the comments.

It should be noted the station in El Campo that Kane started out at was KULP.

For everything on this blog about Kane, click on the label below.

Larry Kane Show Clips

I've heard from Bud Buschardt, a graduate in RTV from the University of Houston who worked at KUHF and KUHT and went on to a long career at WFAA-TV and KVIL, Dallas, and then the ABC Radio Networks. He now teaches communications classes at the University of North Texas and was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2010.

Buschardt has talked to his friend and classmate Kerry Richards who was the director of the Kane show beginning in the mid-60s and who confirmed that the tapes of the show were destroyed while in storage in an un-air conditioned warehouse. The only videos known to exist are those that were traded with stations in other markets that were doing similar teen shows. One such clip was provided by Buschardt to Ovid Stevens, a member of the 1960s Dallas psychedelic rock group Southwest FOB. Stevens has posted the clip on YouTube. The song was produced by Buschardt's record company. Kane's mention of the smash hit Harper Valley PTA dates this clip to the spring of 1968.



Stevens was the guitarist and founder of the group which also included Dan Seals and John Colley. Seals was the younger brother of Jim Seals of Seals and Croft; he and Colley teamed up to form the soft rock group England Dan and John Ford Coley in the 1970s. After the group disbanded, Seals had a lengthy solo career as a country artist and died in March, 2009.

There is also an edited version of the clip which runs only 59 seconds and shows only Kane's intro to the band and his interview with members afterwards.



Since this Blogger template unfortunately does not accommodate YouTube videos, here are the links. The long version has been uploaded a couple of times; here's the original upload by Ovid Stevens with comments. And the shorter version.

There is also a 9 minute clip in black and white with KUHT leader posted by Jay Dooling, one of the dancers on the show. This was filmed while the show was still being broadcast from studios on the UH campus at the facility on Cullen Blvd. that that had been the original home of KNUZ-TV and later became the long time home of KUHT. Buschardt believes the episode dates from January, 1963. Two dancers, Dooling and his partner Mary Ann Masters, are tagged in the video, about half way through. This one shows only the dancers, however, Kane's appearances are edited out.

The dancers on the Kane show had to take dancing lessons before they could appear and their talent is clearly showcased, especially in some of the uptempo numbers near the end of the clip.

Still another 14 minute clip consists of home movies of a couple on the show; it's in color but the video is poor and there's no audio.

ETA:  Here's a YouTube video clip of a segment of KTRK's Good Morning Houston featuring an interview with Kane with Don Nelson and Hank Moore with lots of brief videos from the show.

If anybody knows of any other clips online please let me know.

The Larry Kane Show - KTRK-TV

Larry Kane was a dj in Houston in the 1950s who had a popular dance show on Channel 13 on Saturday afternoons, Houston's version of American Bandstand. I haven't done anything on the blog yet on KTRK-TV but I came across this article from Billboard about the show and thought I'd include it here.

The show was discussed in this thread on HAIF with some comments by kids who participated. There was a link to some photos but it looks like that link is defunct. And Larry Kane and other shows were discussed in this thread.

Incidentally, I have been in touch with descendants of both Bob Byron and Tim Nolan for a planned feature on the Tim and Bob show. One of Byron's descendants is seeking information about the teen dance show he hosted on KPRC-TV also in the 50s. If anyone has any memories to share, please contact me through the comments or my email link on the profile page.