When I posted about those Drive-in Bingo sites the other day, that had been just a detour from what I had actually set out to find.
There had been a radio studio located on top of a restaurant, the studio on top had large plate glass windows facing the parking lot. People could see the DJs as they ate meals in their car and listened to the station. I think it was sometime between 1940 - 1960. I recall reading about it in some old broadcast related magazine which also showed a picture, but I don't recall where or when it was. I do recall waitresses came out to the car for orders and delivering the food, they also accepted song request slips for the DJ. It had been described as a "drive-in Radio station".
A search of Googlebooks rendered an intriguing passing mention of a "drive-in Radio station" in a 1968 HIFI/STEREO magazine article about the famous singer songwriter Buck Owens, it makes a brief, but intriguing mention of "the first drive-in radio station in the country"
SINGER -SONGWRITER BUCK OWENS The man who turned Bakersfield, Cal., into "Nashville West"
".. When he was sixteen Owens had a nightly radio show on KTYL in Mesa; he played the eight-string mandolin, and a partner played guitar. KTYL was advertised as the first drive-in radio station in the country, and fans could drive into the parking lot next to the station and watch the performers through a large glass window. .."
As you can see from this zoom-in there's a guy behind the glass playing a guitar, a woman standing off to the left (presumably a backup singer), and some other member of the band, and the audience in their cars in the parking lot, which is pretty cool, but it's not the same station I was trying to find.
Radio: Continued Balmy In Mesa, Ariz., 1,000 motorists jammed the parking lot outside station KTYL to watch the show going on in what the station claims to be the first drive-in studio in the U.S.
'DRIVE IN' RADIO; Station KTYL in Arizona Is Easily Visited SITUATED in an irrigated valley, this town, sixteen miles from Phoenix, is blessed with sunny skies, a climate that's well-nigh perfect, and something quite new in the way of radio-KTYL, “the drive-in station." No need to write the sponsors for broadcast tickets. Just drive past Arizona State College at Tempe, and, one mile south of Mesa, pull in at the trim structure resembling a miniature Museum of Modern Art. Park your car alongside the ranch-trucks, station wagons and jallopies outside the huge plate- glass windows, and watch KTYL's announcers spin their platters or read their newscasts.
Loudspeakers festooning the studio-transmitter building enable you to hear as well as see the broadcasters. As yet, no local beauties have been employed as car-hops to serve cheeseburgers and cola drinks- that's probably the next logical step.
KTYL is a dream station in every one of its meager 250 watts. Broadcasting on 1,490 kilocycles, staffed largely by its owners, most of KTYL's stock is owned by its personnel, a group of experienced young men who dreamed realizable dreams while serving in the armed forces. ... ... Pooling their savings, the boys garnered some funds from a local rancher, a hay and cattle broker and a frozen-food locker operator. Total capitalization, $48,000.
As with most independent operations, KTYL is primarily a music and news station. Some 250,000 persons in its primary area hear a serving of every sort of music daily from 6 A. M. till 11 P. M. Four disk jockeys specializing in everything from symphony to swing are being rewarded with a goodly supply of mail from listeners who seem to prefer music to mystery shows and "soaps." .. ...
The book Ramblin' Rose: The Life and Career of Rose Maddox (1997) also mentioned it: Ramblin-Rose-the-Life-and-Career-of-Rose-Maddox Page 95
. .... As they arrived in a doud of dust and emerged clad in their Turk uniforms, it was Inevitably a charged, thrilling moment. Then they would invade a local cafe, decked out in full rogalia, for a bite to cat and some promotional gladhanding. They were mobbed wherever they went.
"Oh folks! Were they hot!" said Buck Owens. "And not only were they hot, they were fun. There was a little radio station there in Mesa, Arizona. KTYL, they called it. The World's First Drive-In Radio Station, and that's where I first saw the Maddox Brothers & Rose. This radio station had a great big plate-glass window in the studio. They built 'em so they could have live stuff there. This was about 1948. What they did was, people would come and park their cars, Just like at a drive-in movie, You'd park, watch 'em perform, and hear it on your car radio.
"They had advertised that the Maddox Brothers & Rose were gonna do a thirty-minute program at drive-in radio station KTYL. ... .. They were just a lot of fun!" Although Owens was already broadcasting over KTYL by this time with a little band called Mike and the Skollet Lickers," he still credits the Maddoxes as being the catalyst that drew him into the music business
So there you have it, KTYL during the late 1940s was known as, "The First Drive-in Radio Station in the Country"
Next...
Fast forward 20 years for the "Worlds Only Drive-In Radio Station" in Claxton, Georgia in 1968. I haven't found much about this one. It has brief mention on Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claxton,_Georgia
Claxton and Evans County are well served by locally owned and operated radio and newspaper. WCLA Radio broadcasts on 93.7 FM and on 1470 AM. WCLA was known for years as the "World's Only Drive-In Radio Station" as it was based in the large screen of Claxton's Tos Drive-In Theatre.
"WORLD'S ONLY DRIVE-IN RADIO STATION". Keystone Network . . . Georgia Cracker Network WCLA places all emphasis on diversified programming -. Local, National ...
That's about as far I got, but there's apparently more to the story that Google AI found somewhere..
Google AI: WCLA in Claxton, Georgia, was promoted as the "World's First and Only Drive-In Radio Station" because its first broadcast studio was a trailer located at a drive-in theater. The station was started in 1958 by owner W. Danny Swain.
How the drive-in radio station worked:
In the era before FM radio was widely used at drive-in theaters, WCLA ingeniously broadcast its signal from a trailer next to the theater's concession stand. The signal was received by the car radios of moviegoers, providing a clearer sound than the individual window speakers typically used at drive-ins.
WCLA also broadcast normal programming for the Claxton community on its 1470 AM frequency, but its direct presence at the drive-in earned it the unique "drive-in radio station" moniker.
This innovative approach made WCLA a beloved fixture in the community and a memorable part of the moviegoing experience for many who grew up in the area.
Wow, very cool, maybe I will dig into that more and see what's true and what AI just fabricated. Looks like a part 15 something might have been there, (but it's saying 1958, which is a full 10 years earlier than what I found).
But I still hadn't found the one I was looking for, so I posed the question to Google AI, which replied with some high-rise stations that had windows. So I tried again: "Let me clarify, there had been a radio studio located on top of a restaurant, the studio on top had large plate glass windows facing... ..." (Continuing with the exact words as how I began this post).
This time it looked lik AI came through...
Google AI:
Given your clarified memory, the most likely candidate is WHK in Cleveland, Ohio, which ran a popular radio show from a restaurant with large glass windows in the 1950s. The detail about waitresses taking song requests from drivers, who would then watch the DJ on the other side of the glass, is a key feature of WHK's live remote broadcasts during the drive-in dining era.
While other radio stations did similar promotions, the WHK broadcasts were very well-documented and fit your description exactly.
Here's a breakdown of the specific details:
Radio station: WHK in Cleveland was known for broadcasting live from drive-in restaurants.
Timeframe: The broadcasts happened during the 1950s, which is consistent with your memory.
Location: The broadcasts took place in drive-in restaurants around Cleveland.
Format: WHK would broadcast live from the restaurant, engaging directly with the drive-in audience.
Waitresses and song requests: Waitresses at the drive-in would deliver food to people in their cars and take song requests for the DJ.
Visual element: The radio studio was often located in a prominent spot in the restaurant, and a large glass window allowed patrons to watch the DJ at work while eating in their cars.
The combination of the drive-in setting, carhop service with song requests, and the visual access to the DJ makes the WHK Cleveland broadcasts a strong possibility.
Such a nice breakdown, but apparently AI made most of that up. Looks like an "AI hallucination" to all hell above, none of the citations even hinted at WHK being associated with any kids and of "drive-in Radio" or broadcasting from a restaurant, nor did I find anything to confirm it on my own (not that I deep dived in or anything), and still haven't found the one I was looking for, but I did find this very interesting one. WAAA was a black programming radio station back in the 50s ...
WAAA signed on the air October 29, 1950 as the first Black programmed radio station in North Carolina and with an all Black format... The legendary “Daddy-Oh on the Patio” aired from Ray’s Roadside Drive-In on Highway 311. WAAA provided broadcast jobs for many African Americans who may not have had an opportunity to work in the field. ..
And found this along with a great picture on Facebook:
"Oscar “Daddyo” Alexander went on the air for WAAA radio in 1957. Every weekday at 3 PM he signed on from a glass booth on top of Ray’s Roadside Restaurant on US 311 North near Winston Lake: “This is Daddyo, from the Patio, coming to you from the black spot on the radio.” In the day when white radio stations refused to play “race music” (they played imitations of rhythm ’n’ blues recorded by such as Pat Boone), Oscar led us all, black, white and otherwise kids, into the new world of rock ’n’ roll. .. ...
On YouTube, this cool video about it..
Daddy-Oh and the staff WAAA-AM developed and implemented a remote media broadcast of the Daddy-Oh On The Patio Show. Rancho restaurant (Forsyth County, NC) [originally Ray's Restaurant]
I never did find the station was looking for.. then I asked myself why I was wasting my time on it? It's not even part 15, so now I've quit searching for it, I'll end up coming across it again when I'm not looking for it anyway.
But you got to admit they were pretty cool. Now real quick - I'll conclude with The Boy Scouts Drive-in Radio story ...
Hal Davis, K&E publicity veep, and Leon Goldstein, WMCA program v.p., heading the N.Y. Boy Scouts drive in radio-TV, with WNBC-WNBT's Bill Berns. B&B's Douglas Burch, CBS' Dave Jacobson and Arthur Perles, WOR-TV's Ivan Reiner and indie film producer Martin Gelenter on the committee...
The N.Y. Boy Scouts drive in radio what??? I never heard of it but wanted to know more. Apparently some kind of promotional campaign, but I could no other mention of it anywhere. The Boy Scouts were quite involved in radio and tv shows during the 50s, there are some cool old articles related to that but nothing about "drive in radio"...
Finally I realized I had interpreted it wrong!! The correct interpretation is that in New York, Hal Davis and Leon Goldstein were heading a local promotional drive for the Boy Scouts that was being featured on radio and TV. There was no drive-in Radio involved! There you have a good example of how I end up on wild goose chases for information that doesn't exist because my starting point was in error to begin with.
So no, there was never a "Boy Scouts Drive-In Radio" that I know of
This topic was modified 8 months ago by RichPowers
