Wednesday, August 26, 2009

KFXM August 26, 1960

It's Now Or Never-Elvis Presley #1
Highest debut A Million To One-Jimmy Charles #29 also #2 The Twist lists Roy Cordell besides Chubby Checker. What's the story?

New guy in the lineup Jack Sands as mentioned last week in the note from Bruce Chandler

New
Tell Tommy I Miss him-Marilyn Michaels
Sergeant Preston Of The Yukon-Ray Stevens
Three Nights A Week-Fats Domino
Save The Last Dance For Me-Drifters
Chuck Berry has an album this week in the Spotlight Albums. Currently he will be playing along with Little Richard at San Manuel in San Bernardino this week.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wasn't ROY CORDELL a manager at
the station at the time.
Something vague in my memory
links his name to this.
True??

If he was an employeee, I don't
know the link to THE TWIST.

Muddy memories.

Anonymous said...

I just checked the KFXM
website, http://www.tigerradio-kfxm590.com/, and mention
of ROY CORDELL is in there.
He was still manager of
KFXM when KMEN entered the
scene 3/10/1962.

Turmoil ensued at KFXM for the
next 2 years. Then Al Anthony
took over and turned it into
a really competitive station with
KMEN.

Lord Darth Rageous said...

all of it true enough:
co-owner Howard Tullis's penchant for keeping on loyal (but less than performing) employees was almost a detriment to the business end of his radio stations' operational success. the Roy Cordell period speaks of incompetent mismanagment and programming mistakes which could not turn the ratings tide against the hot K/MENdous Top-40 format until Howard finally allowed the promotion genius of Almondo Fiori to bring KFXM back in broadcasting prominence.

Lord Darth Rageous said...

POSTSCRIPTUS to my previous message:
while the said Roy Cordell did have prior performing experience during the big band/big crooners era and, likewise, with related record companies, i have found no definitive relationship between Mr. Cordell and Chubby Checker's first time out with "The TWIST" IN 1960...
i sure wish this question had come up before now! i could have asked Mr. Checker in-person when i had a conversation with this great recording artist a few years back when he appeared at Tower Records promoting his then-latest CD titled "Chubby Checker Classics".

Anonymous said...

This TWIST link sounds like
an inside joke. Did CORDELL
love the twist and sang it
all the time in the halls
of the CALIFORNIA HOTEL on
5Th St. in Berdoo?

More guesses?

Lord Darth Rageous said...

perhaps Mr. Cordell use to sing "The Twist" to his old bandleader, Jan Garber, who knows?!
indeed, KFXM's old studios were located at the historic California Hotel until Tullis & Hearne invested in a real estate deal during the construction of the Holiday Inn at 666 Fairway Drive which resulted in then-state-of the-art studios and offices being constructed to suit the new Tiger Radio's regained growing media presence in the Inland Empire.