Thursday, May 22, 2014

The Vanished, Genteel Past...

     So, you turned on the radio this morning and your local (or imported via satellite) shock jock drove you back to your iPlayer?  Heated political rhetoric had you wishing for that earlier, more-refined day, of commentary from H. V. Kaltenborn and announcers required to wear formal attire just to hawk soap flakes and car tires?

     Oh, nostalgia, rose-tinted spectacles and all...!  Dream, on, Yankee -- that ain't half the story.  This country's first loud-mouthed, opinionated talker (and spinner of records) first took the air about 1924 and quickly began providing "...plenty of verbal pyrotechnics—bawl out somebody unmercifully—give them a good show. Whether or not they like what he is telling it, they listen and come back for more."   The formula sounds terribly familiar today but William K. Henderson of Shreveport, Louisiana invented it on KWKH and kept at it for nearly nine years until the predecessor of today's FCC finally pressured him into selling the station.  To the modern ear, he's got a little something to drop on everyone's toes, from plain rudeness to casual racism to lambasting Republican Herbert Hoover and "chain stores,"* and he makes Howard Stern sound like a Cub Scout.

     That idealized past?  Yeah, that--  Better ask Grandma: it was never quite so shiny as it looks now.
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* Yes, kids, he hated Walmart before there were any; he loathed the GOP before George Bush ever trod this Earth.  Ponder on that awhile.

5 comments:

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Henderson would have fit in nicely at MSNBC.

Old NFO said...

I heard stories from my grandmother about KWKH, she 'must' have been talking about Henderson. They lived about 50 miles south of Shreveport, and I remember her liking jazz. :-)

Bubblehead Les. said...

Well, he probably beats Sports Talk radio.

Inbredredneck said...

Oh, you poor folks who never enjoyed the dulcet tones wafting from the speakers when Joe Pyne sailed the air waves. Never could understand how he could get new guests to come on the air so he could abuse 'em.
http://www.filmsaroundtheworld.com/Joe_Pyne_Radio_Show.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Pyne

Windy Wilson said...

KWKH -- Louisiana Hayride?

I decided long ago that the old days seemed better because we survived the difficulties we faced then, which is not always apparent with the current set that we haven't solved yet, but most importantly, our parents were in charge then; we weren't dependent on our own wits. That difference meant we could sleep quietly in the back seat no matter how bad the roads and weather.