A new voice for Buffalo’s Black community: WUFO

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo


Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting 


“Buffalo’s newest radio voice spoke in its debut with a sound of moderation and sincerity, and promised an ambitious public service program,” reported Jack Allen in the Courier-Express as WUFO signed on at 1080am.

WUFO’s original on-air staff, 1961, including Eddie O’Jay, Jimmy Lyons, The Hound– George Lorenz, and Joe Rico.

Since 1961, WUFO’s programming has remained 100% dedicated to Buffalo’s Black community, which had grown 143% from 1950-1960.

“The only Black-owned and operated radio station in Buffalo and the only source of music and information reflective of the black experience,” said a 1981 station promotional piece.

Jimmy Lyons with Sammy Davis Jr.

In signing on, WUFO brought to the airwaves Buffalo’s first two full-time African-American disc jockeys.

The Courier-Express called Jimmy Lyons “the Jackie Robinson of Buffalo Broadcasting.”

 When this photo of Jimmy Lyons was taken in the WXRA studios on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Amherst, he was Buffalo’s first (and only) black disc jockey.

By the time WUFO signed on, Lyons was a Buffalo radio and entertainment veteran who was first heard on local radio in 1937, when he won the Shea’s Buffalo Amateur show on WBEN in 1937 at the age of 17.

Through the ’40s, Lyons was a singer and dancer at nightclubs in Buffalo and across the northeast with a stint as an Army lieutenant in between, serving in Italy and Germany during World War II.

After settling back in Buffalo, Lyons became a draftsman for Bell Aircraft, while also entertaining in nightclubs and picking up weekend radio work at small stations around Buffalo like WWOL, WXRA and WINE where he was a pioneer in playing a mix of rhythm and blues and gospel music.

On WUFO, he hosted “The Upper Room” with gospel music twice a day and “The Lyons Den,” with R&B music middays.

Bob Wells wasn’t the only deejay to host dances at the Dellwood Ballroom. Jimmy Lyons with Sam Cooke and fans at the Dellwood, Main at Utica.

Ellicott District Councilman King W. Peterson, WXRA owner Ted Podbielniak, Jimmy Lyons, and attorney (and future councilman and judge) Wilbur Trammell celebrate Lyons’ work in the African-American community.

Eddie O’Jay came to Buffalo from Cleveland as WUFO’s program director and daily “Blues for Breakfast” host.

Eddie O’Jay (left).

He would later hold the same on-air job at New York City stations WWRL and WLIB. His fast-paced pioneering style in Buffalo and then New York inspired many aspiring young African-Americans, including Frankie Crocker and Imhotep Gary Byrd.

Gary Byrd, 1975

Both Crocker and Byrd were Buffalo natives who listened to O’Jay on WUFO, got disc jockey jobs at WUFO themselves, and then followed O’Jay to fame at WLIB in New York City.

When O’Jay died in 1998, both Crocker and Byrd attended his funeral and spoke to the New York Daily News.

“When I was growing up in Buffalo,” said Byrd, “there were no black radio stations and no black jocks. Eddie O’Jay was the first black voice I heard on the radio. He hit that town like a tornado.”

Crocker said of his mentor, “The deejay was the show. You never looked at the clock. When the record ended, you talked, and Eddie was a master. He’s the reason I went into radio.”

The most widely remembered claim to fame for O’Jay, whose real name was Edward O. Jackson, was the soul group the O’Jays.

The group that scored several hits in the ’70s including “Love Train” was formed in the ’50s as the Mascots. They renamed themselves the O’Jays in honor of the disc jockey after he began to heavily promote their music on the radio in the early 1960s.

O’Jay and Lyons starred in a series of radio commercials for Simon Pure Beer, where Lyons was aboard a spaceship called the “East Aurora,” which was fueled by Simon Pure Beer.

When WUFO first signed on, Courier-Express critic Jack Allen wrote, “O’Jay has arranged, along with Lyons, a schedule of daily broadcasts which at first listening seem conservative and in excellent taste, and which should gain wide appeal with its constructive service contributions to the community.”

Luckily for the nearly six decades of great radio it inspired, WUFO from its very earliest days has remained excellent in taste, but has veered from the conservative to the innovative more often than not.

WUFO newsman Malcom Erni

O’Jay spent about a year at WUFO and was replaced by Sunny Jim Kelsey. Soon after, Frank Crocker became a regular in WUFO’s lineup.

Sunny Jim Kelsey, WUFO

Frankie Crocker… Chief Rocker… The Eighth Wonder of the World!!! Revered as the man who changed the rules for African-Americans as both disc jockeys and musicians, Frankie Crocker started down the road to national fame via New York City and nationwide reverence from his native Buffalo.

A graduate of Buffalo’s East High School, Crocker was studying pre-law at UB when he was bitten by the radio bug, joining WUFO as News Director in 1964. There, he tasted early success spinning urban wax and never turned back.

Francis Crocker, East High Class of 1958

As a deejay at New York City stations WWRL, WMCA and WBLS, Crocker began playing album cuts and extended mixes from Urban artists, bringing a more diverse sound to the airwaves and opening the door for more creativity and wider audiences for artists of color. Adding to his cache, was the time he entered New York’s famous Studio 54 on white stallion.

Starting with his time in his native Buffalo at WUFO, Crocker helped to bust stereotypes and bring the music of an entire race from the remote corners of the music world to the popular choice of hip New Yorkers.

Frankie Crocker, at New York’s WWRL Radio shortly after leaving WUFO Radio in the mid-60s.

After Gordon McLendon bought WBNY 1400am and moved his WYSL call letters over to the station in 1961, WUFO Radio took over WYSL’s old spot at 1080am. The call letters at that frequency changed from WXRA to WINE to WYSL to WUFO in a matter of four years, but have remained WUFO for six decades.

WINE’s format was Top 40 rock ‘n’ roll, but WYSL was “beautiful music” when the station first signed on. By the end of the 1960s, WYSL was WKBW’s primary Top 40 rock ‘n’ roll competitor.


This page is an excerpt from  100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York. 

©2020, 2021 Buffalo Stories LLC, staffannouncer.com, and Steve Cichon

Dick Lawrence brings Top-40 to Buffalo

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo


Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting 


A young program director with a big mouth, big ideas, and a big appetite for promotion rock ‘n’ rolled his way into Buffalo in 1957, and Dick Lawrence permanently etched his taste for music and in-your-face radio into the taste and expectations of Buffalonians.

Even if they came along kicking and screaming. Buffalo’s newspaper radio critics reflected the feelings of most Western New Yorkers past the age of 16, with regards to the new sounds coming out of their radios.

Dick Lawrence

Sturgis Hedrick of the Buffalo Evening News recalled Lawrence on the pages of the paper as “the energetic young man who brought the raucous, jangling—and alas, moderately successful—sound of ‘modern radio’ to Buffalo.”

 The original WBNY Top-40 line-up included Lawrence, who appeared on the air as Felix with his pet parrot Fernando.

“A sound of hoopla and noisy disc jockeys went into full swing night and day,” said the Courier-Express’ Jack Allen. “Most 15-minute newscasts, a tradition at the station, were dropped and Gene Korzelius’ sportscasts were reduced. The fast-paced schedule eventually also did away with the Grosvenor Library Classical Music Show…The top-40 format with the rock ‘n’ roll beat was in to stay.”

The theme is pretty clear. It was also echoed by J. Don Schlaerth.

“Station WBNY, described as ‘the friendly voice of Buffalo’ seems to have given in to the noisy bounce of rock ‘n’ roll and Elvis Presley to ‘keep up with 1957 musical tastes.’ Not long ago semi-classical music and standard favorites predominated on WBNY. Then there was no room for an Elvis.”

Henry Brach was a newsman and deejay at WBNY and as ‘BNY’s news director, gave Danny Neaverth his first job in Buffalo radio. He moved over to KB and spent more than 20 years there as the station’s gruff uncle and the butt of the jokes of untold numbers of disc jockeys.

If you tuned to WBNY in the late 50s, you were likely to hear the voice of Daffy Dan Neaverth, Fred Klestine and Henry Brach. At WBNY, Neaverth would pull a rooftop like event similar to Guy King’s, throwing candy out to passersby. Neaverth, perhaps with his boyish good looks and demeanor, evaded arrest for his stunt.

Daffy Dan Neaverth, WBNY. Neaverth left WBNY for WKBW, inspiring the rath of Dick Lawrence—who made firing Neaverth one of his first acts when he became boss at KB. Neaverth went to work at WGR until returning to 1520 for a 26-year run at the station.

It was fast tempo music, fast tempo talk, fast tempo musical station IDs. It was also the only programming on the station. Rock ‘n’ roll could be heard elsewhere on the dial, but nowhere else was it the only music a station played.

Love it or hate it, the tiny 250-watt station– which could barely be heard outside of the city’s boundaries– was the talk of Western New York.

Other radio stations hated more than radio critics and parents of teens combined.

Four months into Dick Lawrence’s reign at WBNY, WGR announced that it is no longer in the rock ‘n’ roll business.

“Radio station WGR, after taking an impartial music survey among local housewives, has decided to go off the ‘hot’ music path into the relaxing realm of ‘good music,’” reported The Courier-Express. “It will let other Buffalo stations divide the rock ‘n roll spoils.”

The survey named Perry Como as favorite male vocalist followed by Pat Boone and Bing Crosby.

The next day, the paper printed reactions from local radio programmers and called Lawrence’s response “violent.”

“I’ve seen this policy tried before,” Lawrence said. “It doesn’t work and I’ll be a pallbearer at their funeral.”

WGR went to the extreme, but most other stations had some rock music at some point during the day. The only station that didn’t, was WBEN.

“The changing styles in music have never affected the WBEN program policy of providing music, news, drama and public service for all members of the family,” a station official told the Courier-Express.

Other radio stations might not have embraced the music, but after six months, they were beginning to lose revenue. 50,000-watt WKBW Radio was losing to a 250-watt station.

WKBW General Manager Al Anscombe told the Courier-Express that the sound being put out by Dick Lawrence was “slightly wacky” – but the trends were there. KB could die on the vine, or go all in.

And did KB go all in. The station owned by a preacher with call letters standing for “Well-Known Bible Witness” hired away the young programmer and promoter who sent a donkey around downtown Buffalo wearing a sign that said, “Everybody is listening to the new WBNY but me, and you know what I am!”

Lawrence christened KB as Futursonic Radio, rock ‘n’ roll had a new home on Buffalo’s radio dial, and KB would begin a dominance that would last a generation.

Within a year of the change to a Top-40 format on July 4, 1958, WKBW Radio was taking out full-page ads in Buffalo’s newspapers touting their status as Buffalo’s most listened to radio station.

One of the most famous disc jockeys to spin tunes on WBNY only lasted about a month at the station– but would go on to a legendary career in syndicated radio and voice work.

Before he became the voice of “American Top 40” and Shaggy on “Scooby-Doo,” Casey Kasem was “Casey at the Mic” on WBNY in 1960. Shortly before his arrival, he set a record at WJW in Cleveland for what he called “world’s longest on-air kiss,” after laying an 85-second smooch on starlet Diana Trask.

Much later, Kasem would admit to “screwing around too much” during his short time in Buffalo. He’d land in San Francisco, and was well on his way to forever having his feet in the ground while reaching for the stars.

Early group shot of The Even Newer WKBW Futursonic disc jockeys, including Jim Taylor, Ted Hackett, Tom Shannon, Don Keller, Dick Braun, Gene Nelson, Bob Diamond, and Russ Syracuse.

Dick Biondi at a record hop in 1960, just before leaving KB for Chicago.

Dick Biondi was the first nighttime voice of the rock ‘n’ roll era on WKBW.

He referred to himself as “a screamer,” and often told the story about how he was fired from KB because he was too loud. He also claimed to have been fired from KB because he played an Elvis song that wasn’t approved.

What really happened: he told listeners that one of KB’s managers was driving down Main Street in an Impala convertible. “If you see him,” he said, “Throw a rock!”

Someone did—through the boss’ windshield. Maybe he was too loud.

Dan Neaverth, WKBW

Irv Weinstein joined the WKBW Radio news staff in 1958, ultimately becoming the station’s news director. He was responsible for creating a news sound that reflected the music and personalities on the station. He walked across the parking lot to become Ch.7’s news anchor in 1964.

When WNIA officially signed on in 1956, the station was promised to be “as revolutionary to radio as color was to television.”

More than just Top-40, the record library at the Genesee Street studios boasted more than 10-thousand recordings.

But there was still plenty of room for rock ‘n’ roll. From early on, 1230am was “a home for top tunes” as J. Don Schlaerth put it in the pages of the Courier-Express, who wrote, “as a new station with lots of peppy music, the ratings began to jiggle.”

In 1957, Gordon Brown, owner, WNIA, told The Courier-Express, “We play the top 100 tunes half of the time and the old standards the other half of the time. I think people like the sweet popular music as well as rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve had terrific results in the popular music field. We also like to play some soft music to help the housewife work around the house.”

WNIA signed-on in 1956, and doubled its power in 1962.

While the power changed, what didn’t was the disc jockey’s names. For more than two decades, when you turned on the radio in the morning, the deejay identified himself as Tommy Thomas— even though it might have been a different guy with a different voice calling himself Tommy Thomas the day before.

Just like with Guy King at WWOL, station founder Gordon Brown insisted that the disc jockeys at the radio stations he owned use those on-air handles instead of their own.

He felt the stock jock names gave a more consistent sound even as the DJs changed rapidly, it was always Mike Melody and Jerry Jack.

WNIA saw itself as a more staid (and cheaper!) version of WKBW. KB wasn’t mentioned by name in one 1963 ad, but anyone reading it would have known what was being implied.

“As far as wild banshee, screaming announcers, wild nonsense gimmicks and promos… NEVER on WNIA.”

At 1080am, WINE was perhaps the least remembered of the handful of radio stations which tried to break in on the Rhythm music scene in late 1950s Buffalo.

“WXRA has changed their call letters along with their programming,” wrote Danny McBride in his column in the Blasdell Herald in 1957. “The new call is WINE, along with crazy sounds like the new WBNY.”

The WINE call letters didn’t last very long. In 1960, WINE became WYSL at 1080am.

1080am was then sold to WUFO, and the WYSL call letters moved to 1400am, displacing the old WBNY.

Before WXRA became WINE, Tommy Shannon had his first radio job there.

Hernando was the morning man at WXRA, and stayed on at WINE. The mic flag in this photo was edited from saying WXRA to WINE.

Hernando went on to do the all-night show on WGR, after the station “gave up” on giving up rock ‘n’ roll.

Greyt Scott appeared on other Buffalo stations as Charlie Griggs. Tap Taplin had been a regular on WEBR for at least a decade before moving to WINE, and Jimmy Lyons was Buffalo’s first full-time, regularly featured African-American deejay.

The WINE mobile unit—a Volkswagen van—always turning heads.

Disc jockeys joined forces to raise money for charity at a game at the Bishop Timon gym in 1959. Standing: Charlie Griggs (Greyt Scott) WINE, Rog Christian WBNY, Tom Shannon WKBW, Terry Mann WWOL, Dan Neaverth WGR, Danny McBride WEBR, Jack Kelly WKBW, Rick Bennett WWOL. Sitting: Bud Stiker (Jerry Jack) WNIA, Dick Carr WBNY, and Don Fortune WBNY.


This page is an excerpt from  100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York. 

©2020, 2021 Buffalo Stories LLC, staffannouncer.com, and Steve Cichon

From Jimmy Lyons to Sheela Allen, remembering Buffalo’s African-American broadcasting trailblazers

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Starting in 1948, Buffalo television for its first 18 years was a de facto — and in some cases, policy-driven — segregated medium.

WBEN-TV reporter Sheela Allen interviews Natalie Cole at the Buffalo airport, mid-1970s.

During World War II and the years immediately following the war, Buffalo’s black population grew quickly both in real numbers and as a percentage of the overall population.

Eventually, there were a small handful of radio shows that catered to African-American tastes and interests, in much the same way Buffalo’s Polish and Italian populations had their own radio shows.

In 1968, Courier-Express Radio & TV reporter Jack Allen wrote about the need for the training and development of media talent from local minority communities, pointing to Buffalo’s first media star of Western New York’s African-American community as an example of a success story.

Jimmy Lyons was born and raised in Buffalo and starting working in theaters and nightclubs as an entertainer at age 16. He went to West Virginia State College and UB, and he served as a lieutenant in the Army in Italy during World War II. In 1955, he joined WXRA Radio, then in Kenmore, with a rhythm and blues show called “The Lyons Den.” He moved to WWOL and then WUFO when that station signed on as “The Voice of the Negro Community” in 1961.

Allen called Lyons “a man of principle and talent who has the respect of the broadcasters who worked with him in this area” and “a respected native of Buffalo with a fine background of accomplishment, an intelligent viewpoint and capable broadcasting techniques, and a man who has long had his finger upon the pulse of the Negro community.”

Ernie Warlick, on a 1965 trading card.

But that was radio. There wasn’t a regularly scheduled black presenter or entertainer on television until Ernie Warlick joined the staff at WGR-TV Ch. 2 in 1966. At first, he was the station’s weekend sportscaster. A few months later, he became the station’s nightly 11 p.m. sports anchor.

Warlick was a fan favorite during his years as a tight end for the Buffalo Bills. On the field, he’s remembered as a target for a Jack Kemp touchdown pass in the 1965 AFL Championship Game.

Off the field, he was known as a gentle giant with a warm smile. His calm demeanor made him the obvious choice as the spokesman for the black players who voted to boycott the 1965 AFL All-Star game in New Orleans after they experienced racism in the city.

Being able to talk to the reporters in such a tension-filled situation, but also talking football with his customers at the two “Henry’s Hamburgers” stands he owned in Buffalo, gave Warlick the experience needed to be hired by WGR Radio for daily segments after his playing career had ended.

With those radio spots going well, Warlick began hosting “The Quarterback Club” on Channel 2, and eventually he anchored sports during the station’s newscasts and breaking Buffalo’s TV color barrier.

Shortly after Warlick joined the sports staff at Channel 2, Irv Weinstein hired John Winston for Eyewitness News at Channel 7.

Winston had spent years as a writer in medical research before joining the reporting staff at WKBW-TV, where he was Buffalo’s first black television news reporter.

He won several awards for his in-depth reporting on issues facing Buffalo’s African-American community in the years immediately following the 1967 protests of the oppression and living conditions of many in Buffalo’s black neighborhoods.

Winston left Channel 7 in 1977 to join the communications staff at the NFTA.

John Winston, reporting on WKBW-TV in the late 1960s.

When Chuck Lampkin first came to work at WBEN-TV in 1970, he was best known to many Buffalonians as a jazz drummer who’d accompanied such stars as Dizzy Gillespie on the road.

At Channel 4, he was in a rotation of news anchors, becoming the first black man to regularly anchor local TV newscasts in Western New York.

Before the term was in common usage, Lampkin was also the station’s consumer reporter. He’d take a cameraman — such as Mike Mombrea or Bill Cantwell — to the shop or office that had ripped off a viewer, and he’d usually get the problem resolved.

Chuck Lampkin, right, with John Corbett at the Channel 4 anchor desk in the mid-1970s.

Lampkin was in the anchor seat several times during one of the definitive events in Buffalo history, the Blizzard of ’77.

Sheela Allen was a television pioneer on two separate tracks — not only was she among the first women to work as a general assignment reporter, she was among the first African-Americans, as well. She was Buffalo’s first female African-American television news personality when she got to WBEN-TV Ch. 4 in 1972.

At Channel 2, June Bacon-Bercey was a science reporter for WGR-TV Channel 2, when she was drafted to take over evening weather anchor duties. Bacon-Bercey, who’d later receive her doctorate in meteorology, was both the first woman and the first African-American to earn the American Meteorological Society seal, crediting her worthiness as a broadcaster and as a scientist.

While African-Americans remain underrepresented as far as a population percentage in local television broadcasts, the black journalists who have worked in Buffalo often go on to more high-profile work.

Les Trent, who was an anchor and reporter at WGRZ-TV in the 1980s, is now a correspondent for Inside Edition.

Pam Oliver, who has been a network NFL and NBA sideline reporter for 25 years, was a reporter at Channel 4.

Jericka Duncan, who was also a reporter at Channel 4, is now regularly seen on the CBS Evening News, as a correspondent on the newscast anchored by Tonawanda native Jeff Glor.