Larry was an iconic figure at the Rock and Roll era at WLS-AM. He died from cancer of the esophagus (three guesses of the cause)
The same Tom Taylor newsletter today reports additional details of the sudden death of Kid Kraddick over the summer. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system) four years ago, a closely held secret until now.
It turns out that Rush was influenced by Lujack, according to some of the WLS/WGN coverage today. I’d guess that WLS gets into Cape Girardeau, Mo. regularly. I didn’t hear Rush today so I don’t know if Lujack was discussed but in reviewing some of Larry’s airchecks, I recognized some things such as the dramatic pauses and paper shuffling. I’m sure Lujack wasn’t the first person to do those things but I can see how they might have made their mark on Rush, not to mention Jeff Christie on KQV in Pittsburgh.
I’m sure that had to be true. Lujack was to Chicago what Cousin Brucie was to New York. I doubt Lew Dickey even knows who he was.
WCFL (the station of the air check) was owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor and its history goes back to before 1928 when the Feds formalized how frequencies and licensee would be handed out. They pushed hard for the notion that non-commercial stations were important, as the commercial stations refused to sell air time to labor unions. That idea was fought by RCA/NBC and the notion of a non-commercial setaside didn’t take root until after WW2 when FM radio became available to the masses.
WCFL is now WMVP – America loves Sports!
That Jeff Christie showed a certain excellence in broadcasting. 😉
CC, I bet you would have figured that out even with half your brain tied behind your back!
Lou was pretty good too, perhaps excellent. He knew every trick in the book
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haYvrO5D_Yo
WCFL made it back into the hollers of West Virginia.
Parrott
It is one of those 50 kw Clear channel stations.
The dynamic in play at the time was RCA (mostly) was using radio patents to prevent others from building radio stations or making radio receivers. When Armstrong came up with the superheterodyne receiver, suddenly you could have a radio station every 10 kHz (8 kHz in Europe). The commercial folks were using that clout to lock out non-commercial voices – like churches and labor unions from getting a radio station license and licensing the technology.
1928 was the watershed year when the government stepped in and forced the patent fights to end. AT&T was content to build out the national network for NBC, GE would make the transmitters and RCA would sell the radios.
The CFL had the clout to get the 1000 kHz frequency assigned to them, but ultimately couldn’t make it as a non-commercial station and started airing advertisements. Lujack was there as the place was dying, as is evident in his voice and the nature of what he is saying. The Rock n Roll on AM radio was dead as FM radios had been universally installed in cars for a decade and music drifted to FM. He returned to WLS and stayed there until WLS-AM flipped to talk nd the Rush Limbaugh AM era began
More about the transformation of WCFL from the voice of labor to the competitor to WLS
http://www.timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/chicago-media-blog/14939237/wcfl-flashback-the-man-who-rocked-chicago-radio
After 1928, in 1930, the government forced the split of GE and RCA…. you know, like they forced the split of ATT and Southwest Bell because long distance telephone was going to be the next big revenue business.
Patent law then, copyright law now:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/12/19/phony-copyright-claims-exploit-holes-in-u-s–internet-law.html
The Congress is about to deal again with extending the Disneyization of US Copyrights (and the global trend in general) to essentially create copyrights in perpetuity for corporations.
On the positive side, there are signs the government is getting ready to end software patents, which have been a really bad thing. I’m a coinventor on three software patents that I opposed. I told NASDAQ if they committed to turn over the patents to a custodian who would license them without charge (which would protect NASDAQ from future vague patent trolls but prevent NASDAQ from using the patents to shut down competitors) I would go along. If not, if the patents were challenged, they should expect my testimony would not be supportive of their claims.
Are you “Stoned”? 😉
Governments tend to favor big corporations because it takes big corporations to make substantial campaign contributions as well as under-the-table gifts. They are also easier to control because there are fewer people to intimidate.
Look at Obamacare for example, the government wrote the policies, defined the risk pools and changes the “law” weekly and the insurers salute and do as they are told, take their guaranteed profits, and skim some to return to the politicians. A mom and pop dry cleaning store can not do that on a national scale.