A long time ago, we posted a large composite of KFRC from May 1982 including a nice segment with Broadway Bill Lee (he didn’t use ‘Broadway’ in San Fran of course). Here’s part 2 of that composite, which features morning funny man Dr. Don Rose (and some very interesting news segments partly included), and Harry Nelson.
The occasion for re-posting as fresh, both this and part 3 is because we’ve made some updates to the exhibit and upgraded to our standard audio player.
This is crisp, CLEAN AM audio! KFRC had probably the best audio chain of any AM station in the nation, and done without the reverb that many of the ABC O&O stations like WLS & WABC had. It was always simply a thing of beauty to the ears.
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This is a great sound of KFRC during this time period, Dr Don always sounding great followed up by long time KFRC Personality The Duke Dave Sholin Sholin had returned to KFRC from the his duties as the RKO Corporate Music Director in the fall of 1980 and handled weekend duty along with his fulltime gig as an editor of the “Gavin Report” a long runnning Industry Newspaper based in San Franscisco.
In January 1982 Sholin added the 9am to 12noon show to his busy day replacing Rick Shaw who took over middays at KYUU. Sholin would coutiune to handle this shift during the Game Zone era in 1985 and in 1986 was named Program Director replacing outgoing Mike Phillips and the Game Zone, Sholin would be the last BIG 610 PD as KFRC ended the Top 40 era in August of 1986. Sholin stayed with the KFRC as it became Magic 61 and was the Program Director for a few years.
Harry Nelson sounding Great as always keeping Middays moving right along, Harry would leave the station about a about a month later to accept a Programming postion in Portland, Maine. But of course Harry would return to KFRC 2 or 3 more stints including the kick off to KFRC FM 99.7 where he handled Morning Drive.
I CAN JUST CRANK UP THESE KFRC AIR CHECKS ALL DAY AND NIGHT! IT’S JUST HARD TO BELIEVE 610 KFRC HAS BEEN GONE FOR 20 YEARS! (LONGER REALLY). THOSE WERE SOME GREAT TIMES IN RADIO. STATIONS JUST DON’T MEASURE UP ANYMORE. NO ENERGY, NO IMAGINATION, NO PASSION, NO KFRC… KFRC WAS MORE THEN JUST A RADIO STATION. 610 WAS SAN FRANCISCO… THE MUSIC, THE 610 AIR TEAM, (DR. DON -“YOUR DUKE” DAVE SHOLIN – HARRY NELSON – CHUCK BUELL – SUE HALL – THE SLIM ONE – DON SAINT JOHN – JACKSON ARMSTRONG – “BROADWAY” BILL LEE – SHANA – JOHN MACK FLANAGAN – “MARVELOUS” MARK MCKAY -“SHOTGUN” TOM KELLY – YOU’VE GOT “B.O.”,BOBBY OCEAN – CHUCK BROWNING – CHARLIE VAN DYKE – BEAU WEAVER – ERIC CHASE – ROB CONRAD – JACK FRIDAY – “BIG” TOM PARKER – RICK SHAW – SANDY LOUIE – WILLY SANCHO – JERI STEWART… AND MORE! – THE PROMOTIONS, THE JINGLES & IMAGING. JUST TO TURN ON AND LISTEN TO KFRC… YOU NEVER KNEW WHAT WAS GONNA HAPPEN NEXT! TRULY, THE GREATEST TOP 40 RADIO STATION OF ALL TIME… I WILL FOREVER MISS “THE BIG 610” KFRC!
HAVE DOCTOR DONALD D. ROSEY DAY!
“WILD” BILL SHAKESPEARE
This era by far was one of the greatest eras in radio history. In San Francisco KFRC even over took number one long time station KGO during the mid seventies.
As Wild Bill said 610 was San Francisco and I was just glad to be around in this market to hear the excitment never to be duplicated again.
wow!! what great jocks!! what ever happened to this heart pumping radio!? These jocks today are like home owners association neighborhoods we live in today…cookie cutter….time to bring back this type of radio with great voices and tight programming instead of these little homie disc jockey wanna beeeeeeeeeees
i just have question…did DR. Don Rose pass away? A friend had told me he did but maybe someone can confirm that
Sammy,
Yes, Dr. Don passed away on March 30th, 2005 from pneumonia.
Listening to this and other KFRC airchecks makes me wish I lived in the bay area when the big 610 was doing it.
What a bunch of great jocks and the station rocked all the time.
The sad reality is we’ll never get to hear that kind of radio again. That’s why this site is great because whether we lived in the area or just heard about it from others, we can enjoy KFRC along with other stations and the jocks that made radio stand out for years.