A KLVL Gallery

Morales Radio Hall - toward the rear of the parking lot for the funeral home at 2901 Canal on the east side.  Built in 1970 to house the radio station, this structure replaced an earlier building right on the street in front of it that housed the radio station before.  The older building has been demolished to make room for more parking for the funeral home.  This building has been remodeled to be used as a community meeting hall.  The studios themselves were not restored.

The walls of the meeting room are lined with photos depicting some of the history of the station over the years, a small sample, I am told, of the hundreds of pictures that have been preserved.  The pennants in the background identify this photo as the 6th anniversary of the station which would have been in 1956 (May 5th, Cinco de Mayo),  They also wish Happy Birthday to Felix Morales, owner.  Mr. Morales wife, Angie, celebrated her birthday on May 5th, Morales himself was born on May 27.

The announcer Carlos Conde is on the left, with the cane (and apparently extending a hand held mic in from of the person in the center).  The person adjusting the microphone stand is Joe (Jose) Morales, I believe, son of Felix and longtime announcer and manager of KLVL. Felix Morales is on the right with his arms folded.  

Any help in identifying other participants will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 2.

Felix Hessbrook Morales - 1907-1988

Morales and his wife, Angeline "Angie" Vera Morales

Joe Morales, son of the owner.

Felix Morales played guitar and used his talent to entertain listeners to his radio programs in San Antonio and Houston before he got his own station, filling time when a scheduled guest failed to show or was late or ran short.  He also loved to join musical guests on air and afterwards, in sessions conducted both at the station and at his home as I understand.  Recordings were made of many of these sessions and thousands are said to have survived.  A large collection has been given to the (Harris County) Heritage Society, along with many photographs, and others are still held by the family, which has done a good job over the years of documenting and preserving the history of their enterprises.  This is one of the photos on the wall of the Radio Hall showing Morales, his wife I believe, and possibly a visiting film or musical star on the right.  The microphone boom and clock on the wall suggest this was in a studio at the station although the decor (lamp, seating, curtains) may indicate a private residence.  The sleeved discs on the table might be samples of the recordings released by the guest or recordings made during his visit.  Any help in identifying the man and the occasion will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 6.

A group picture with the same gentleman pictured above.  The others may be part of the celebrity's entourage or KLVL staff.  Whether the picture was taken in a studio or at the Morales home I don't know.  Any help in identifying those pictured or the occasion will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 7.

Any help in identifying those pictured with Felix Morales will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 8.

The two seated gentlemen have familiar faces but I cannot come up with names.  The one on the right may be Felix Tijerina, the well-known Houston restauranteur, but I have not been able to locate a good  likeness for comparison.  Any help will be appreciated.  Please refer to Picture # 9.

The Morales Funeral Home was established almost 20 years before the radio station was launched.  This 1938 LaSalle Carved Panel hearse was used by the funeral home for years and is currently garaged elsewhere.  It was brought to the parking lot for the Heritage Society tour to see.  It still runs and appears to be in very good shape.  The tires look practically new and from what I could make out through the very dirty windows, the upholstery is in good shape.  In addition to the Radio Hall, the Funeral Home has been completely restored in recent years and plans were spoken of to fully restore this vehicle to be shown off at community events and used in parades.

The above photos were snapped by me during a Heritage Society See Interesting Places tour in March of 2017 when we also listened to a presentation by Christina Morales, granddaughter of Felix and current head of the Morales operations, on her family's history and achievements.  She currently serves as Representative to the Texas House of Representatives from District 145.  I neglected to take a recorder or note pad but have consulted other sources in writing this post.  Any corrections to any of the above information will be appreciated.

This story from the Houston Chronicle in 2015 tells of the grand opening of Morales Hall. Pictured is Christina Morales in the Hall looking over a large scrapbook which includes may newspaper clippings and photographs of the history of the station.  Excerpts from the scrapbook may be found online by searching for images of the Morales Radio Hall or KLVL.

Maria del Carmen Garcia, nee Aleman, first female radio announcer on KLVL.  Obituary.  There are several other pictures of her in the studio in the Tribute Video, most of them in the first few minutes, and the stills are in the From the Family section (scroll down through all the Memories).

This post from the East Aldine Management District deals with Houston Press columnist and novelist Sig Byrd, Felix Morales, a $20 funeral, cold beer, warm tortillas and butter, and listening to Maria Del Carmen Aleman, 'glamorous girl disc jockey' who reportedly received a thousand pieces of fan mail a week, and how Byrd wound up being buried in Morales Cemetery.

I sure hope to uncover an air check of Maria someday.

Photos and comments are welcome from other readers of this blog.

Paul Berlin - RIP

Longtime Houston radio and television personality Paul Berlin has passed at the age of 86.  He was a legend almost as soon as the first time he cracked a mic.

A Chronicle report.

Mike McGuff's tribute.

There will undoubtedly be many, many listeners and radio personalities weighing in with comments on both those sites.

Houston Crime Stoppers Building will Honor KTRK-TV Anchor Dave Ward - UPDATED

As reported today by the Chronicle, the long time anchor will be memorialized in brick and mortar.

Congratulations to Dave and thanks for your decades of service to the Houston community.

Mike McGuff's coverage.

KULF Production Studio, ca. late 1970s

Phil Konstantin sent along this picture taken in the KULF Production Studio in the late 1970s (later than 1976).  That's Phil on the left and the man beside him is Stan Barber from KTRU.

At the time the KULF studios were located in the Central National Bank building.  The air studio was right next door.

This picture shows the production of a Public Affairs program called Overview for the Jaycees.  The program aired on both KULF and sister station KYND.  Phil also later produced Dan Lucas' evening talk show.  He works in San Diego TV now.

Sam Putney, Dan Ammerman, Jim Young, Bill Leslie and Galen Grimes are some of the people from the KULF Newsroom at that time.  Kay (no last name on-air) Henderson worked on the ground and Dave Hale worked in the air doing traffic reports.  Jim Tate, Gary Ryder, Vashti Henderson, Joe Bauer, Roger St. John and Nick Rice were some of the other people he remembers working with there in that time frame.  He and Bauer also did some things together in San Diego.

My thanks to Phil for sending this picture and his recollections along to share on the blog.

Letters from our Listeners - KXYZ, 1930

I received these images from Christina Bowker. 

The letter, a song request, was postmarked in November, 1930, just months after KTUE became KXYZ.  Both stations operated from the basement of the Texas State Hotel.  Earl Flagg and Al Hendly had a program on KXYZ called Pals of the Air.  One of the announcers has written on the letter 'will play soon.'

My correspondent expressed surprise that a request would be sent by mail but I think this was very common in those days, perhaps more common than phoning in, although that would have been possible.  Radio stations did not have the capability at that time to put phone calls on the air I don't think.

Earl Lawrence Flagg, Christina's grandfather whom she never met as he died in 1955.  It was said that he could play any instrument he touched but his specialty was the electric guitar.  He also was a photographer, as is his granddaughter. 

I was also asked if any recordings might exist from that era.  I think that would be extremely unlikely.  The only means of recording in those days would have been electrical transcription.  I think very few individual stations had such capability and even if they did, it would be unlikely the disc, a large phonograph record, would have survived.

If Flagg continued in radio for some years, there may be a possibility of a recording of him from later.

My thanks to Christina for sharing this photo, one of only a few she has.  I mis-filed the letter in my word processor and am happy that I finally found it.

Phil Parr - R.I.P

Lufkin Daily News obituary.

Dave Westheimer writes:

"Phil Parr was at KTLW in Texas City from 1962 to 1970 and was bassist for Utah Carl during those same years. He moved to Lufkin in 1970 and worked at KSPL in Diboll. He also created and ran the Blind Handyman radio show on the ACB (American Council for the Blind) Radio network for years.

He may have been the last surviving member of Utah Carl's Gulf Coast Jamboree Boys. His predecessor on bass, Sam Reece, may still be living, but all the other 60s regulars are gone now."

Texas Country Reporter feature on The Blind Handyman.

Flickr photostream, posted by his wife, Luan, KTLW Once a Millenium Reunion, 2008.

Flickr photostream, posted by his wife, Luan, Blind Handyman Gathering, 2008.

My thanks to Dave for bringing this to my attention.

Milt Willis, 1929 - 2005

He was born Milton T. Willis in Houston; raised in Montrose, he graduated from Lamar High School, class of 1948, and went off to the Navy. While stationed in Hawaii he met and married his wife and they returned to Houston and raised a family of four children.  He was known to family and his closest friends as Milton but to hundreds of thousands of listeners over the years and most of the hundreds of other broadcasters he came in contact with, he was just Milt.

I have not been able to pin down when he first got into radio but for the most part he was associated with KTHT, KXYZ and KODA.  Except for a very brief stint in Rapid City, SD, he spent all his career in Houston radio and in addition to air work he did a lot of voice work for advertising agencies and film production companies.  I first have a record of him at KTHT, listed as program director, on a music survey in August, 1959.  He was also one of the deejays as were Jack London and Larry Kane.  He would have been in his late 20s by then and with a voice like his he had undoubtedly been receiving admonitions all his life that ‘you should be in radio,’ so undoubtedly he got his start some years earlier.  He would not likely have been a Program Director in his first job, either.  Good friend Gene Arnold remembers him at KTHT and says he had worked earlier at KXYZ where Gene had also worked although not at the same time.

Arnold remembers Milt did the morning show at KTHT and hated the shift.  One time when he was interviewing a new over-night talent for KTHT that Arnold had referred he told the man he’d have to be willing to hang around some mornings until 6:15 or 6:30 when Milt couldn’t make it on time, a condition the prospective hire was not happy about.  By 1960 he had found another solution to that problem; a KTHT survey published in June of that year shows him working a split shift - 8 to 10 am and 2 to 4 pm.

In the late 50s, KTHT went by the moniker Downbeat, using Ray Conniff’s ‘S Wonderful’ as an hourly ‘downbeat’ to the launch the programming.  The Chronicle had reported in June, 1958, that Robert D. Strauss’s Texas Radio had purchased KTHT from Roy Hofheinz and it appears to have been a  few months later when the Downbeat moniker began appearing in the listings.  Gene doesn’t know for sure but doesn’t think Milt was responsible for coming up with the programming. 

The station was sold again in 1961, the formal transfer of ownership to Winston-Salem Broadcasting occurring in March.  The incoming owners installed new programming they called Red Carpet Radio and GM Sam Bennett resigned.

Three months later, in early June, Public Radio Corp. of Houston took control of KXYZ-AM and FM from NAFI Corporation of Los Angeles.  Public Radio was composed of Lester Kamin of Houston, an advertising executive who had himself been a deejay in the 1940s, his brothers Max of Houston and Morris of Victoria.  They also owned stations in Tulsa and Kansas City.  They named Sam Bennett as new GM and Milt Willis as PD.  GM Cal Perley and PD Ken Collins were out and would later team up again at KFMK.  Collins told Houston Post columnist Bill Roberts he found out he was no longer PD of KXYZ when he read it in the newspaper.

During the early 1960s, KXYZ-AM and FM were outstanding radio stations.  In an era when the GM of another big Houston station described the city as just a big over-grown country town, KXYZ presented the city as sophisticated and cosmopolitan.  A big key to the imaging were the stagers which introduced musical segments with glowing audio pictures of the city.  I still think of the KXYZ of that era as one of the best sounding Houston radio stations of all time.  Gene Arnold doesn’t know much about the years Milt Willis was at KXYZ and does not know if he was responsible for the programming concept but his voice was ubiquitous on the station.

In April,1965, Billboard Magazine reported in a market spotlight on Houston radio that Milt was still PD of KXYZ but in January of the next year reported he had been upped to Operations Manager and a new programmer, Bob Winsett of San Francisco, was moving in.  By June of 1966 Milt moved over to KODA as PD; Don LeBlanc was upped to Operations at KODA and yet another new PD was named at KXYZ.

Milt continued as Program Director of KODA for some years.  Another Billboard Market profile in March of 1967 shows him still in the post but sometime between that time and the time I joined KODA in October, 1974, Milt accepted an offer from a station in Rapid City, South Dakota.  I remember him telling me the call letters and I remember they were just one letter different that KODA - I believe it was KOTA.  He realized almost immediately it was a mistake and he stayed a very short time.  He called GM Martin Griffin at KODA and asked to return, Griffin asked the staff and it was agreed they would welcome him back.  This may have been when he transitioned into sales.  By the time I got to KODA in ‘74 he was Sales Manager, having moved into that chair when Tom Hoyt was upped to General Manager not long before.

I worked as an announcer in the same building with Milt for four years until Tom Hoyt named me Operations Manager to replace the departing Jason Williams.  Just a few months later Hoyt left and Paul Taft promoted Milt to General Manager and then just a few months after that, Taft sold KODA-AM and FM to Westinghouse, Group W.  Milt and I worked together for the next three years to try to build KODA from an also-ran for years in the beautiful music war with Harte-Hanks’ KYND.  We talked everyday, went to lunch together often, but I wasn’t into radio history at that time and never asked about his career even though I had been aware of him since the 1950s.

We sometimes shared  bits of our personal lives, though.  I knew he collected movie theater lobby cards.  One Monday I remember him looking very bedraggled and I asked why.  It turned out he had spent the whole weekend on puddle-jumper flights to South Carolina and back to pick up some prized cards and he was beat.  He was as proud as a new Daddy of the cards he had scored, telling me all about them and their significance,  but he vowed never to do that again.  I also remember him sometimes beaming on a Monday morning after a weekend jaunt to the casinos in Louisiana where he apparently regularly did quite well.

Gene Arnold shared a passion for collecting movie lobby cards and got Milt into the hobby and they went to conventions together.  Gene says Milt liked to linger at the airport lounge and he warned him repeatedly he was going to miss a flight sooner or later but it was Arnold who almost missed a flight when he mistakenly boarded a flight to Seattle and didn't discover the mistake until the last minute. Gene says he and Milt also enjoyed betting against each other on college football games. 

Success in the Beautiful Music format on FM depended a lot on external advertising, chiefly on TV and billboards, to get the call letters across, since so much listening to that format was done at very low, background levels.  Harte-Hanks KYND had always had a much bigger advertising budget than KODA but when Westinghouse came to town, the tables were turned.   By the end of 1982, KODA's ratings success was so complete, Harte-Hanks pulled the plug on KYND and turned the frequency over to their wildly successful AM, KKBQ, the successor to KTHT and KULF on 790.

In February of 1983, just a little over a month after KYND called it quits, Milt was promoted to National Sales Manager of Group W’s Texas stations and he finish  his long career in Houston radio with Westinghouse.

Personal Postscript:  Milt lasted longer than I with Group W.  I clashed with the consultant Westinghouse assigned to their FM stations, all of which at that time were struggling except for KODA.  Finally I gave up and left.  The book that covered my last months as PD was the first one in KODA's history when it edged KYND but I was not there for the celebration.  I talked to Milt only once after leaving but some 20 years later, sometime in the first decade of this century, I was coming back from Austin on I-10 and decided to pull into the San Felipe de Austin State Historical site in Austin Co., the unofficial capital of Stephen F. Austin’s original colony.  I had known about the place since the 7th grade when every Texas school child took a Texas history course but I had never visited.  The town was an important commercial center before independence and  hosted several important meetings leading up to the Texas Revolution.  I walked around the grounds soaking up Texas history and as I stepped into a meeting hall, an audio track started playing.  It was Milt’s voice.  Son-of-a-gun, I thought, This guy is everywhere. I wonder how many other state historical sites have audio tracks voiced by Milt?

I am indebted to Laura Willis Hixon for the pictures above and to her and Gene Arnold for details of Milt’s life and career and their personal remembrances of him.

A Look Back at KLOL, 10 Years After

The Chronicle's Craig Hlavaty doing a little reminiscing, including an audio clip of a discussion with Outlaw Dave and pictures.

J. Kent Hackleman - KTRH Talk Show Host

J. Kent Hackleman was an early talk show host on KTRH.  His granddaughter has this site devoted to him, trying to raise money to digitize 300 audio tapes of his shows.  There are some pictures and a little bit of history.

Early KTRH and KTLC Performers

I just stumbled on this source by accident.  Story Sloane writes a feature article for the emag Houston Lifestyles and Homes using photos from his great collection and a year ago published this one about early radio performers.

There was a Guy Savage who worked at KXYZ in the 1950s and later was sports director of Channel 13 in the 60s.  I have wondered before what the connection was to the earlier Guy Savage on KTRH; I don't see a physical resemblance.

The KTLC studios were in the old Houston Post building at Texas and Travis, catty-corner from the Chronicle.

There was a time in radio when not only were the announcers always live but all music had to be performed live also.

FOLLOWUP:  In addition to providing the ID in the comments, Dave Westheimer sent along this picture of Guy Savage (left) and Gus Mancuso (right), broadcast team of the Houston Buffs in the 1950s.  Dave says the square-cut, dimpled chin is the give-away.  Okay, so I never was very good at faces.  This is the same man who was the first morning man on KTRH and I can confirm that's the man I remember doing sports on KTRK-TV in the 60s.

Jackie McCauley - KLOL PD

I knew Jackie back in the 70s and knew she had been to Rice, but never knew of the historical significance of that as revealed by this post on the Rice History Corner blog.

Besides being PD of KLOL in the 70s (see the KLOL brochure here), then of KSAN-FM, San Francisco, she had an interview program, 'Shootin' the Breeze,' featuring interviews with leading Black music artists, produced and distributed by Westwood. 

Bill Young - RIP

As posted on Bill Young Productions -

a dominant force on the Houston radio scene for decades as talent, program director, production specialist and voice, passed early Sunday, June 1.

No obituary posted yet nor arrangements for a service.

I am in shock.

For those who do not know of Bill, I highly recommend his book.

UPDATE, ONE YEAR LATER:  BILL'S SON, SCOTT, HAS POSTED A TRIBUTE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.  WELL WORTH WATCHING.

Also, see Scott's comment (# 14) here about his mom. 

Features from the Rice History Corner

From the Rice archives...

a feature on KTRU with some pictures and lots of comments.  Take a look at that archives link.  How many stations do you know that have an archive of broadcasts like that?

A feature on James L. 'Jimmie' Autry, Rice student and early radio enthusiast, who was mentioned in the Pre-Broadcast era post on this blog, including pictures of his equipment.  The archivist asks for some help in understanding the equipment.  Perhaps readers of this blog can help.

And, television at Rice in 1934!.  Houston had 3 AM radio stations, no FM stations, and the first TV station was 15 years in the future, but they were watching TV at Rice!

Features on Baytown and Galveston Radio

Here are a couple of radio related features from Galveston-born writer Bill Cherry.

The first is about Baytown's DJ of the 1950s, Bill 'Rascal' McKaskill.  This article answers a question posed in a comment here on this blog several years ago about the use of 'Night Train' as a theme, an answer I should have had since I had corresponded with Rascal.

And a story about how George Roy Clough of KLUF invented call-in radio.  There are some problems with the dates in this story - the Moody's station (he's referring to KFUL) was off the air long before 1938 and Clough had also changed calls long before then.  There may be other issues but that's two I noticed.

A Feature on Early Black DJs in Houston

...and the origin of the term rock and roll, from Wired For Sound, an excellent blog (link on the sidebar) with pictures, names and history.

Would I ever love to hear some air checks.

There are scattered pictures and history of Houston radio of years past throughout the blog.  For instance, way down at the bottom of this post is a picture of Dickie Jones and the Skyliners in the KATL studio in 1947.  As the legend notes, the man at the microphone is Johnny Edwards, morning man on KATL.

Houston Radio, Up Close, 2001

A special Doug Miller Channel 11, KHOU Up Close report on Houston Radio from 2001, posted on YouTube, with some well-known Houston personalities - most of whom are still around.  The story is old news to readers of this blog but it's a fascinating snapshot of history.

Johnny Goodman, a voice from the past

From the Valley Morning Star.

The Phil Harlow mentioned was the first program director of KCOH and also worked at KXYZ.

Dick John, RIP

The former KHOU-TV News Director and anchor has passed at the age of 84, reported by Mike McGuff with a video and the Chronicle.

KGUL-TV/KHOU-TV 60th Anniversary - Update

As noted in a recent post, Channel 11 is celebrating its 60th Anniversary this year.  The station has posted a series of articles with great flashback photos online.

The Sammy

The Texas Radio Hall of Fame has created the first named award, The Sammy, dedicated to pioneering women in Texas broadcasting.   J.C. Webster of KLUV, KNUS, KLIF and KMGC is the first recipient.

Mary Nash 'Sammy' Stoddard herself sent me notice of this, enclosing a short bit from the Tom Taylor Now newsletter:

"Mary Nash “Sam” Stoddard was a pioneering woman in Texas radio, and now the Texas Radio Hall of Fame establishes an award to honor women in the business – naming it “The Sammy.” Stoddard herself continues to broadcast on a regular basis, and she tells this NOW Newsletter she’s got a new Power Point presentation about her career, starting with her as a 15-year-old on KULP, El Campo in 1954 and going on to Waco and then Dallas at KVIL. There she was the “Girl named Sam,” a very early example of a fulltime female jock in a major market. She later married KVIL morning man Mike Stoddard, and she worked at four other stations and networks after leaving KVIL"

Thanks, Mary, and congratulations on your long career.

Texas Radio Hall of Fame

Mary Stoddard

Tom Taylor Now