Murray the K worked as a promoter and producer through the 50’s, but he caught his big break in 1958 when he signed on with WINS in New York to do the all-night show. This was just as WINS’s star disk jockey, Alan Freed, was indicted for tax evasion and forced off the air. Freed’s spot was briefly occupied by Cousin Bruce, Bruce Morrow, but Murray was quickly moved into the time period and remained there for the next seven years.

When he left WINS, his next stop was at WOR-FM where. As program director and primetime evening DJ, he created the first FM rock station, setting the pattern for countless other stations that followed, including WNEW-FM and WCBS-FM.

Kaufman reached his peak of popularity in the mid 60s when, as the top-rated radio host in America’s largest market, he became an early supporter of The Beatles. Later, Murray was referred to as the “Fifth Beatle,” by George Harrison during a train ride from New York to the Beatles’ first U.S. concert in Washington, D. C. Their friendship was renewed when they came to NYC in February, 1964 and met again. He was invited to the set of A Hard Day’s Night in England and made several treks to England during 1964, giving WINS listeners more Beatle exclusives.

Following Alan Freed’s lead, Murray produced several concerts each year. Those shows featured the top performers of the era and introduced new acts, such as Dionne Warwick, Wayne Newton, Bobby Vinton (who was the leader of the house band when he asked for a chance to perform as a singer), The Lovin’ Spoonful, Cream, and The Who. Murray the K left WINS in the mid-60s when they switched formats, and worked at stations in Toronto and Washington D.C. before returning to New York to team with Don Imus and Wolfman Jack on WNBC.

Don Steele, often promoted as “The Real Don Steele” to distinguish himself from another DJ with the same name, was one of the most popular disc jockeys in the United States, from the mid 60s until his retirement in the 90s.
Steele first fame came as a DJ on Los Angeles radio station KHJ with the “top-40 Boss Radio format” in the 60s. He also appeared on TV in his own programs called Boss City and The Real Don Steele TV Show, a show which ran from 1965 to 1975 on KHJ-TV channel 9 in Los Angeles. When FM stereo radio gained popularity in the 1970s, Steele made the switch and continued his popularity.
In a 1995 interview, his description of Boss Radio was, “Look, you take the Motown sound and the British Invasion and you throw in Elvis and Roy Orbison, and you have a music mix that’s hard to beat at any time or any place”.

🎙️ Wolfman Jack: The Howlin’ Voice of Rock and Roll

In the golden age of rock and roll, there were plenty of legends with guitars and microphones—but none quite like the man behind the radio mic, growling through the static with a voice like gravel wrapped in velvet: Wolfman Jack.

He wasn’t just a DJ. He was a myth with a mixing board, a howlin’ high priest of the teenage airwaves. With his raspy laugh, manic energy, and deep love of the music, Wolfman didn’t just spin records—he spun magic.

🐺 Meet the Wolfman

Born Robert Weston Smith in 1938 in Brooklyn, New York, he had a pretty typical upbringing for a kid of the era. But inside that quiet boy was a wild streak—and a dream. From the first time he heard a blues record crackle through a radio speaker, he was hooked.

Like many teens of the 1950s, Smith was mesmerized by rhythm and blues, and he quickly gravitated toward radio personalities who sounded larger than life. He eventually enrolled in broadcasting school, landed a few early gigs, and then rebranded himself with a persona that was part voodoo shaman, part rock and roll ringmaster.

Thus, Wolfman Jack was born.

📡 Border Blaster Legend

Wolfman Jack found fame on the “border blaster” stations—powerful AM radio towers located just across the Mexican border. These stations weren’t bound by U.S. regulations, which meant they could crank the signal to 250,000 watts or more, enough to bounce his howl all across North America.

Late at night, kids from Kansas to Canada would huddle next to their radios, spinning the dial until they landed on that unmistakable voice. The Wolfman would growl, howl, cackle, and preach the gospel of rock, R&B, doo-wop, and soul.

He played artists most stations ignored—black musicians, regional acts, deep-cut B-sides—and he made them sound like the coolest thing on Earth. And he didn’t stop at music. His shows were part circus, part sermon, part comedy routine, and all rebellion.

🎧 “This is the Wolfman comin’ at ya, baby! Diggin’ deep in the vault to spin somethin’ you ain’t heard but you’ll never forget!”

🎥 American Graffiti & Mainstream Fame

In 1973, Wolfman Jack made the leap from radio hero to big screen icon in George Lucas’s American Graffiti. Playing a fictionalized version of himself, he became the voice of the night, guiding the characters—and the audience—through one unforgettable evening of youth, romance, and rock and roll.

Suddenly, everyone knew what teens in the know already did: Wolfman Jack wasn’t just a DJ. He was a symbol. He represented the freedom of the night, the thrill of discovery, and the bond between a generation and its music.

After American Graffiti, he appeared on TV, co-hosted music countdown shows, and even showed up on The Midnight Special. But no matter the screen, it was always the voice that stole the show.

🔊 More Than Just a Howl

What made Wolfman Jack different wasn’t just the theatrics (though they were spectacular). It was his heart. He loved the music. He respected the artists. He wasn’t afraid to cross the color line during a time when many broadcasters still did.

He helped introduce white audiences to black music. He played gospel cuts next to garage rock and treated every artist—from James Brown to The Beach Boys—as worthy of the same enthusiasm. He was the connective tissue between scenes, sounds, and people.

🎶 Lasting Legacy

Wolfman Jack passed away in 1995, but his legend never stopped howling. He’s been inducted into multiple halls of fame, and his recordings still circulate among collectors and fans. His voice is sampled, mimicked, and remembered in songs, films, and TV shows.

And every time you hear a gravel-voiced DJ with a little extra personality, you’re hearing an echo of the Wolfman.

🐾 Final Howl

Wolfman Jack wasn’t just part of the Golden Age of Rock—he helped create it. He was the underground railroad of rhythm, the howling heartbeat of a restless generation, and the man who turned radio into an instrument of rebellion, joy, and connection.

So next time you’re out late, windows down, radio on, and the perfect song hits just right—give a little growl. Somewhere, the Wolfman is smiling.

🎙️ “Goodnight baby… and don’t forget to brush your teeth!”

Payola wasn’t new to the music industry when Rock and Roll arrived.  Several factors seemed to come together at the same time, leading to a blowup that radically changed the course of Rock and Roll.

The term Payola is a contraction of the words pay and Victrola, a popular brand of record player. Sometimes called Pay To Play  It’s the illegal practice of record companies paying money for the playing of records. This made a record appear more popular that it might have been, giving the artist more exposure, a better rating on the charts, and influencing other radio stations that might be on the lookout for the next hot record. It’s not as common or outright now as it was in the past, or maybe it’s just hidden better. The law prevents record companies from paying directly, but still allows payments through intermediaries.

• At most radio stations now, a music director or manager selects the songs to be played and, frequently, the order and time where they will be played. It was mentioned earlier that the Payola scandal arose due to several factors that came together at the same time. Consider these cultural changes:
• Rock was new, popular with the kids, and generally disliked by their parents.
  The two large music licensing companies, ASCAP and BMI were at odds. They were always competitive, but ASCAP had a slow start in the Rock and Roll business and possibly saw a way to get even with rival BMI. One can only guess that they saw Rock and Roll as a passing fad!
• Technology was giving power to the independent radio stations. Radio was previously confined to the home where family standards controlled the dial. Introduction of personal radios, clock radios, and the portable transistor radio gave teens their own dial to control.
• By the late 50s, the post-war baby boomers were a sizeable economic force, and advertisers found that Top 40 radio was a good way to target them, leading to a boom in independent stations.

The inexpensive, newly introduced 45 rpm single allowed teens to purchase popular hits on a limited budget.  Also, consider that the Payola scandal came along at a time that elected officials were just learning how to get free publicity from holding high profile hearings. This was the time of the McCarthy Hearings, and the Payola inquiries were carried out by the same commission that was working on the television game show investigations.

The Payola Congressional Hearings

Twenty-five witnesses were called, the most famous being Alan Freed and Dick Clark, and the list included other notables such as Les Paul, Bobby Darin, and Murray the K. Ironically, at the time, Payola wasn’t actually against the law, although Alan Freed was eventually convicted on 2 counts of commercial bribery.

Much has been written about the difference between Freed and Clark. Alan Freed resisted testifying on principle, claiming that he never played a record he didn’t actually consider worthwhile, no matter what was given to him. His attitude didn’t play well with the industry, and he was essentially blackballed, ending his DJ career. Freed died a few years later, broke, alcoholic, and depressed in 1965.

Dick Clark, on the other hand, testified freely and even brought a statistician with him to prove that payola had not affected the sales of records with which he was affiliated. He had sold his music related interests before the hearings.

His testimony included “I have not done anything that I think I should be ashamed of or that is illegal or immoral,” Mr. Clark said, “and I hope to eventually convince you of this. I believe in my heart that I have never taken payola”. At another point in the hearing, Representative Steven B. Derounian quipped “You say you did not get any payola, but you got an awful lot of royola”.

Others caught in the fray include Les Paul and Bobby Darin, both charged with paying to perform on Freed’s ABC television show, and DJs Joe Niagara (WIBG, Philadelphia), Tom Clay (WJBK, Detroit), Murray “The K” Kaufman (WINS, New York), Arnie “Woo Woo Ginsberg WMEX, Boston), and Stan Richards (WILD, Boston).

🎵 The Brill Building: The Hit Factory of Rock’s Golden Age

We’ve covered a lot of heroes on the Golden Age of Rock—guitar gods, soul sisters, counterculture prophets, musical rebels, and even the vans they rode in. But today, let’s talk about an unlikely hero: a building. Yep, just a building. Eleven stories tall. Bricks and windows. But oh, what a building it was.

Welcome to the Brill Building, located at 1619 Broadway at 49th Street, right off Times Square. Built in the 1930s, it looked like your standard midtown Manhattan office tower. But behind those unassuming doors was the very heartbeat of pop songwriting in the 1950s and early ’60s—the launchpad of rock and roll’s mainstream takeover.

🧵From Haberdashery to Hit Factory

The name “Brill” actually came from a haberdashery (that’s a fancy old-school name for a men’s clothing shop) that occupied the ground floor. The Brill family liked the location so much, they bought the whole building. But it wasn’t bespoke suits that made the Brill Building famous—it was tailored pop hits, stitched together by teams of young songwriters, composers, and lyricists with a deadline and a dream.

In its heyday, the Brill Building was like a musical beehive: hundreds of music businesses packed into one structure. Publishers, promoters, record labels, studios—you could write a song, arrange it, record a demo, pitch it, and maybe even get it played on the radio, all without leaving the building.

🎹 The Cubicle Symphony

Singer-songwriter Carole King described the scene best:

“Every day we squeezed into our respective cubby holes with just enough room for a piano, a bench, and maybe a chair for the lyricist if you were lucky. You’d sit there and write and you could hear someone in the next cubby hole composing a song exactly like yours. The pressure in the Brill Building was really terrific—because Donny (Kirshner) would play one songwriter against another. He’d say: ‘We need a new smash hit’—and we’d all go back and write a song and the next day we’d each audition for Bobby Vee’s producer.”

This was songwriting with the intensity of a newsroom and the soul of Tin Pan Alley. Some called it a song factory. But what a factory it was—a conveyor belt of genius.

🎼 Meet the Hitmakers

The Brill Building was home to a jaw-dropping lineup of songwriting talent. We’re talking about the people behind the curtain who gave us some of rock and pop’s most unforgettable tunes:

• Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller – They gave us “Hound Dog” and “Yakety Yak.”
• Carole King & Gerry Goffin – “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” anyone?
• Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil – Masters of emotional pop, like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.”
• Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman – Penned classics like “Save the Last Dance for Me.”
• Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich – Wrote hits like “Be My Baby.”
• Neil Sedaka, Paul Anka, Bobby Darin, Gene Pitney, and Neil Diamond all worked or passed through.
• Hal David & Burt Bacharach – The dream team behind timeless love songs.

And that’s not even counting a young Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Carly Simon, and James Taylor who orbited through in the years that followed.

🧠 The Brill Building Sound

The Brill Building wasn’t just a place—it was a sound. Catchy, radio-friendly, emotionally direct, and often written from a woman’s point of view (a rarity at the time). It was the sound of young love, heartbreak, hope, and dancing down the boardwalk with a transistor radio.

It was also a little bit of rebellion wrapped in a 3-minute pop song. Before the Beatles landed or Dylan plugged in, the Brill Building was quietly changing the landscape of music by blending rock’s energy with professional polish.

💻 Brill Goes Digital (Sort Of)

The Brill Building’s golden era faded with the British Invasion, but its legacy didn’t end. In fact, it lives on. There’s even a Brill Building page on Facebook, because what better way to update a mid-century hit factory than with social media?

And the songs? They’re everywhere. Movies, commercials, wedding playlists—those Brill-crafted hooks refuse to fade.

🏆 A Legacy Set in Stone (and Sheet Music)

The Brill Building may be made of brick and mortar, but it’s built on chords and choruses. Its impact on rock and roll and pop music is hard to overstate. It was the creative hub where dozens of hits were born, and where a generation of songwriters learned how to make people dance, cry, and fall in love, three minutes at a time.

So next time you hear a tune that makes you tap your toe or sing into your hairbrush, take a moment to thank the Brill Building. The walls may not sing, but they sure remember.

🎶 “You lost that lovin’ feelin’… Now it’s gone, gone, gone… woah-oh-oh…” 🎶