Courtesy of BigAppleAirchecks…
Here’s our first recording of the legendary Al Lohman and Roger Barkley of KFI. Here, they are featured essentially at the height of their approximately 30 year reign as one of the most popular morning teams in Los Angeles radio history.
Being that your webmaster is from the East Coast and not familiar with Lohman & Barkley except of their reputation, I’m sure that others have important things to say about this program and what it meant to them – and so I’ll leave it to our visitors to comment.
Listen for plenty of News, Traffic… and those dreaded commercials that everyone loves to hate. Included here to preserve the historic nature of Lohman & Barkley on 64 KFI from 1976!
Lohman and Barkley worked separately at KIMN in Denver, and at KLAC, Los Angeles, where Roger Barkley was the PD. In 1963, they teamed for mornings, moving to KFWB in 1967 and KFI in 1968.
This aircheck is very near the end of KFI’s MOR era. In January, 1977, new PD John Rook took the station Top 40, but kept L&B, who picked up the pace of their show slightly, but otherwise kept what you hear here.
L&B came to an end in 1985, when Roger Barkley decided he’d had enough, called a meeting with Al Lohman and KFI management and said he was not coming back tomorrow. Barkley went to easy listening KJOY-FM for a few years, then to talk station KABC.
KFI didn’t want Al as a solo, so he went to a suburban L.A. station for a year, then returned to KFI teamed with Gary Owens. That lasted a year or so, then KFI went talk. Lohman moved to Palm Springs and did many years on KCMJ.
Roger died in 1997, Al in 2002. They never spoke or saw each other after the day Roger broke up the act. Al was heartbroken. Roger would get angry if anyone brought it up.
Hi Calradiopd, I am doing a historical project about KFI. How do you know so much? Also, this audio file isn’t working. Do you know how I might be able to get the original audio file? Lastly, do you have any old audio or pictures or even stories that you think will be good for a comprehensive history of KFI? Thank you! Helene
They may not have spoken to each other after the breakup, but they did both appear at the funeral of traffic reporter/pilot Bruce Wayne just weeks after they separated. That was to my knowledge the last time they would appear anywhere together.
Was KFI still an NBC Radio affiliate at the time??
I heard near the end of the clip a very 1970’s version of the three chimes.
BTW, Bruce Wayne was once a traffic reporter here in Boston (as Bruce Talford) on the old WHDH in the early 1960’s. He was the first helicopter-borne traffic reporter in Boston radio history, with his “Skyway Patrol” traffic reports.
Yes, KFI kept the NBC affiliation until the flip to Top 40, and probably until the contract ran out. I remember hearing network-type spots. You could honor your contract even while not airing the network’s newscast, by clearing their commercials.
By the late 70s/early 80s, one of the suburban AMs was calling itself “NBC Radio 900”.
Bruce Wayne’s only other flight mishap was in Boston. He wasn’t the pilot then and luckily they both survived. He told me it was not an experience he wanted to repeat. He was a pretty cool guy and most of us younger jocks back when KOST had just gone AC would hang out with him as much as we could at events where we were all together. He really was one of the best, not just a reporter, and a damn good one, but an experienced pilot and a great air personality…
I would always love it when Bruce would “get in the act” regarding what Al and Roger were acting out. There was one time when some infectious disease was going about where you would not be able to speak properly. It would be like “Tah… taaay… toooh… rabbit.” Then they broke to Bruce Wayne for traffic and you heard, “Tah… taaay… toooh… rabbit.” Al and Roger would laugh and say, “Oh no, it’s infected Bruce!”
L&B did appear at least one more time as a team in the 1987 movie “Amazon Women on the Moon”, playing parodies of Siskel and Ebert.