January 4, 1963 KFXM & KMEN Surveys

The first week of January 1963 --- 45 years ago ---

These were the hits on K/MEN and KFXM
KMEN had their K/MEN-DOUS TEN plus their Honorable K/mention. What is interesting is that they also included the date the song was added. It took the Cascades about 6-7 weeks to reach #1
Also interesting there is a mention of the playing of the top 129 of the year. They had a list, but I've never seen a copy.
KFXM had their Top 40, Pick Hit, Bonus Pick Hit plus Wax To Watch, plus the Spotlight Albums KMEN
#1 Rhythm Of The Rain-Cascades
12/13 added I've Got My Mind Set On You-James Ray. The song wasn't a hit until George Harrison did it in the 1980s. Oldest song on the survey Return To Sender-Elvis Presley
Pictures of DJs on KMEN, but only a list on KFXM

KMEN jocks with long staying power include Hucklebery, William F. Williams and Brian Lord. There is one KMEN jock who came over from KFXM, Gary Price, he was there from 1959 (maybe earlier) until 1961.

KFXM

#1 Guitar Man-Duane Eddy knocking Rhythm Of The Rain down to #2

Pick Of The Week Hitchhike-Marvin Gaye Future K/MEN jocks on KFXM Mark Denis and Bob Griffin. I also know Lyle Kilgore worked at KMEN in the news department. And I belive, but not sure that Bill Tanner may have done the same.

Johnny Helm at KFXM Soon!

Remember KFXM May 1967 through March 1968?
That was the time period that Johnny Helm spent at KFXM during the 1960s. He also made an appearance back on KFXM during the middle 1970s.
Starting Sunday January 20th 12 Noon to 4 Johnny will be back at KFXM 96.7 Lancaster, also at KFXM.com.
I believe he will also be a guest on Bill Earl's show Saturday Jan 19th 12-4. But you will have to tune in then to find out.
Thanks to Bill Earl http://billearl.blogspot.com/ for the picture and artwork and Johnny himself, for letting me know.

KMEN 1960s Year End Surveys

For a comparison to the KFXM Year End surveys, I now present 1969-1963 from KMEN


Number 1-1969 Come Together/Something-The Beatles

Number 1-1968 Love Is Blue-Paul Mauriat. Not Hey Jude-Beatles which was #2

Number 1-1967 The Letter-Box Tops (See earlier published list in January 2008 for list) 1967 was the first year KMEN reduce the survey from 129 to the top 100.

Number 1-1966 Monday Monday-Mamas & Papas

Number 1-1965 Satisfaction-Rolling Stones

Number 1-1964 I Want To Hold Your Hand-Beatles

Top artist of the year: The Beatles, but look Chuck Berry is number 6 in the first year of the British Invasion.

Number 1-1963 Surfin' USA-Beach Boys

K/MEN did not publish a 1962 Year End Top Hits (as far as I Know). If there was one, someone let me know.

KFXM 1960s Year End Surveys

The following are the KFXM Year End surveys I have.
Number 1-1969 Come Together/Something-Beatles
Number 1-1968 Hey Jude/Revolution-Beatles

1967-Number 1 The Letter-Boxtops This was published last week(December 30, 2007) with the 1967 Year End survey.

1966-Number 1 Daytripper/We Can Work It Out-Beatles

Number 1-1965 Satisfaction-Rolling Stones

1965 is the earliest top 100 of the year I have for KFXM

But, about ten years ago, I went through my 1963 and 1964 weekly surveys (I have most, but not all) and calculated the top 59, based on the the number of weeks on the chart and chart position. Don't ask me the details, I really don't remember, but I do have them written down somewhere. (Just have to find them)

If you did it, it would probably come out a little different, so consider these the approximate Top 59 for the years 1964 and 1963.

If anyone has copies of published KFXM year end surveys for 1963/1964 let me know. I would be interested in how close I came to what they came up with for those years.

For the first time (as far as I know) The top hits from KFXM from 1963 and 1964.

Number 1-1964 I Want To Hold Your Hand/I Saw Her Standing There-Beatles

Number 1-1963 Surfin' USA/Shutdown-Beach Boys

K/mentertainer January 6, 1968

Year end issue 1967 not dated on the cover, but January 6, 1968.

1967 # 1 for the year The Letter-Box Tops
#100 C'Mon Marriane-Four Seasons

The LP is the big prediction for 1968.

Hello Goodbye/I Am The Walrus-Beatles #1

Hit Bound

I Can Take Or Leave Your Lovin'-Heman's Hermits

We Can Fly-Cowsills (they seem to be going Up, Up and Away)

KFXM Tiger Mag Jan 5, 1968

March of Dimes showpromotion for the headline.
Picture of Susan Cowsill of The Cowsills with Johnnny Helm and Gary Marshall Picture of weekender Craig Denny
Also pictures of Tiger Tots Miles Bush, Michael Meadows and Bob Carroll at the KFXM record library.
Fill out the enrollment form for The Danny Dare Love-In Affair Club
Picture of new lead singer for them, Ken McDowell
Also take a look at Miss Beaumont, Debbie Adkins with KFXM News Director, Sherman Mason.

#1 I Am The Walrus/Hello Goodbye-The Beatles

Jumping into the top ten Some Velvet Morning-Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood

Highest Debut on the 40-I Can't Stand Myself-James Brown

TV Theme alert Mission Impossible-Lalo Shifrin as a Personal Pick of Charlie Walters

Also Personal Pick of Dick Lyons Nobody-L. Williams & J. Watson. Is this the same song Three Dog Night did a couple of years later?

K/mentertainer December 30, 1967

Firebird winner,Dorothy Hileman and Doors concert pictures

Top Hits for the 1960s 1960 through 1966

Not sure where 1960, 1961, 1962 came from, since KMEN wasn't around until March 1962, and I don't think they published a year end hits.

1963 definetly is not KMEN, Their published hits for 1963 had #1 Surfin' USA-Beach Boys, #2 Hey Paula-Paul & Paula #3 Sugar Shack-Jimmy Gilmer

1964, 1965 and 1966 match the published hits of the years that KMEN put out.

Next week, the hits of 1967 from KMEN
Returning to #1 Itchycoo Park-Small Faces (which didn't happen very often).

Someone must have been sleeping, there are no position numbers listed on the survey.

New Hit Bound from Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazelwood-Some Velvet Morning
Also the last big hit for Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs-Bottle Of Wine

KFXM Tiger Mag Dec 29, 1967 Year End Countdown

Happy NewYear end issue telling about the biggest and best of 1967 on KFXM

Ed GRrrrrr SEZ telling about KFXM events from January through December of 1967
Sounds like a good New Year's Eve show at The Municipal Auditorium The Boxtops, The Leaves, The Outsiders, Soul Survivors and Them.

Who were the Top Groups on KFXM in 1967. The Monkeees #1 beating The Beatles, with The Rolling Stones barely making the top 10.

Top Male Fankie Valli Top Female Nancy Sinatra and Top Instrumental Group Booker T & The MGs

The top 100 of 1967 The Letter-Boxtops

Notice #74 I made a correction 40 years ago) Spencer Davis Group version of I'm A Man charted in 1967. The Yardbirds hit in 1966.

Some big local hits in the top 100

#4 for the year Blue's Theme-Arrows

#21 I'm Captured-Good Feelins

#24 Music Box-Light

#37 Flower Children-Marcia Strassman

Live/Harmonica Man/Try It/Purple Haze/Mr Soul/Amy/She's Looking Good/Show Me/Rock & Roll Woman and so on. This has to be so different than the national /Billboard end of year chart.#1 Hello Goodbye-Beatles
KFXCLUSIVE
OK, I remembered at the end of 1966, instead of publishing the weekly chart, KFXM published the Top 100 of the year, so in case the same thing happened this year, I listened and kept track when they played the top 40 of the week.

I was right, so below you have an exclusive of the complete top 40, that was not publioshed

Some Highlights
Highest Debut #17 Spooky-Classics IV

Walk In The Queen's Garden-Them #39

KFXM Greg Mitchell Clarification

Received a message fom Greg Mitchell/George Junak clarifying his time at KFXM. He wasn't just a weekend guy....
For those who did not see it...
Greg Mitchell has left a new comment:
Doug,
I was actually fulltime 5-midnight twice and weekends twice at KFXM in 1975-76. In 1975 I first did weekends at KFXM doing two shifts on Sunday while still working at KDES/Palm Springs. After a few months of that I quit KDES & got more weekend hours at KFXM.
The last half of 1975 or so I did the 6-midnight shift at KFXM until I got canned in late December 1975 and returned to doing weekends. I left KFXM in early February 1976 to work fulltime at KDES.
Then KFXM called in April and asked me to return for the fulltime 6-midnight shift. I was back from April-August 1976 doing 6-midnight.
Then Jeff Salgo was hired as their consultant and after a month or two he brought in "Captain Billy" Martin as PD, replacing Ted Brown. Ted had been doing middays on the air and they were going to bump him to 6-midnight so Captain Billy could do the midday shift. Captain Billy's first act was to can me and I immediately went to KSOM/Ontario to do 6-10PM for Bob West there..Greg Mitchell

Greg, just want to say thank you for the comments. Doug

K/mentertainer December 23, 1967

Russ O'Hara with the Firebird 400

Notice the prices of the Doors tickets $5 $4 $3 How about Santa and his elves. Find out what the KMEN want for Christmas. The elves look strangely familiar.

What Christmas songs are bing played in 1967, maybe some of the same ones in 2007

The Rolling Stones and The Beatles in The British Scene. So what else is new?

#1 Hello Goodbye/I Am The Walrus-Beatles knocking down Itcycoo Park down a notch.

Hey, Snoopy's Christmas-Royal Guardsmen made it to the top 10, just in time.

Hit Bounds

Piece of Mind-Paul Revere & The Raiders, should have been a bigger hit.

The 2nd Everybody knows-Dave Clark 5, just starting up the charts.

KFXM Greg Mitchell 1975-1976

KFXM , back of survey, March 12, 1976 listing Greg Mitchell as one of the djs making personal appearances.

Greg Mitchell (George Junak) was a weekender at KFXM in 1975 and 1976. Bill Earl's blog When Radio Was Boss presented articles about him recently. For those who haven't seen Bill's Blog, he is graciously letting me present the KFXM highlights from his articles. For complete articles see When Radio Was Boss

http://billearl.blogspot.com/

The only other survey I found listing djs working at KFXM in 1975

October 31, 1975 and the one at the top of the page: March 12, 1976

George Junak discovered Top 40 radio in 1958 when he was home sick from school as a five-year-old and stumbled across KFWB/Los Angeles on the radio. He knew immediately that was what he wanted to do when he grew up. After getting his FCC First Phone license through the broadcasting program at Pasadena City College, he landed his first radio job in 1973 doing weekends at KDES/Palm Springs as Greg Mitchell.
At one point in 1975, George was working weekends at both KDES and KFXM/San Bernardino, with a Sunday midnight-3AM shift at KFXM, then 75 miles to KDES for 6AM-3PM (babysitting public service from 6-10 and on-air 10-3PM), then back to KFXM for 7-midnight, all on Sunday.

KFXM Some interesting behind the scenes information

George reminisces to WRWB2 about the freedom that the deejays had in music selection on the original KFXM (San Bernardino) during his era 1975-1976.
"...the KFXM music rotation was extremely simple...during the week it was Oldie-Current-Current-Oldie-Current-Current and keep repeating. On the weekend, it was Oldie-Current-Oldie-Current (Flashback Weekend).

The KFXM Top 40 list was typed out on a standard sheet of paper which was slid in a plastic cover. You then drew 3 lines down it and made 3 columns. Each time you played a current you checked it off in grease pencil in that hour's column. When the hour was up, you erased the check marks in the oldest hour and started a new one. Everything not checked off was playable. As for Oldies, there was a wall of 45's behind the DJ on the back wall of the studio with a bin for each year, about 1960-1975 at that time with the Top 100 songs plus a handful of extras. The jock could pull anything he wanted from the wall to fill an oldie slot. You piled up the Oldies you played & after your show, dumped them into your personal bin.

Several days later, you refiled them onto the wall & they were again available for play by anyone. Very unusual system that you would certainly not find today. It gave the DJ much control over what got played on his show...."

and a little bit more...ratings and...

KFXM's GREG MITCHELL (George Junak) reminisces about his tenure at 590 AM in 1975 and 1976.
"...KFXM's days of music freedom for the DJs ended in mid 1976 when owner Howard Tullis hired Jeff Salgo from KKDJ as his programming consultant. While there had been close to 2000 Oldies available for play under the old system, probably a max of 400-500 actually received regular airplay. Jeff trimmed this down to probably 200 and divided them into 4 or 5 categories. The Oldies were now in boxes on a card table sitting behind the jock in the control room. Currents were also now divided into multiple categories with the hot ones getting Power rotation.
Arbitron had not yet included San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario as one of their rated markets (wouldn't happen until 1980). Pulse still surveyed San Bernardino though. In May-June 1976, here's the Top 10:
1) KFXM 14.4
2) KOLA 8.8
KCKC 8.8
4) KBON 8.0
5) KMEN 6.0
6) KFI 4.4
7) KDUO 4.0
KPRO 4.0
9) KCAL-AM 2.2
10) KCAL-FM 2.0
KHNY 2.0
1976 was about the last big year for KFXM. KOLA would continue to eat into KFXM's numbers but never knock them off. But when KGGI went top 40 (1979?) they would kill off KFXM. In Apr/May 1980, KGGI had a 6.3 and KFXM was down at 16th in the Market with a 2.0.

They did bounce back to a 4.3 versus KGGI's 5.7 in the Oct/Nov 1980 book (that was probably the initial upswing from Frank Felix's "Clutter Free" Mighty 690 format on KFXM - also on the air at the time at the Mighty 690, which had a big signal in the Inland Empire 24/7).

From there it was downhill; 3.2 in Spring 1981, 2.3 in Fall 1981, 1.9 in Spring 1982, 2.0 in Fall 1982. By Fall 1983, KFXM was down to 1.3, tied with automated Gold KMEN. But FM KGGI was feeling the heat too; although they had a 4.3 in Fall 1983, KIIS-FM was kicking their butt with a market leading 8.3 share.
KFXM certainly hung on a lot longer than almost all AM Top 40 stations. Most were really hurting by 1976 but KFXM was still topping the market..."

KFXM's GREG MITCHELL (1975/1976) continues his reminiscing

"During the holidays each year, KFXM was an absolute cash-register that had to be emptied every hour or it would overflow...
KFXM had no limit on the number of spots it would run in an hour. 30 units? No problem! It got so bad (Christmas of 2005) that you could not even sweep across the Top of the hour, much less any other time of the hour....The jocks had to play the shortest songs they could find to squeeze in all the spots each hour - a 2-1/2 minute Creedence oldie? Great! It was really difficult to get all the spots in and not spill over into the next hour, putting you even farther behind...
Here's the story of how I got fired from KFXM the first time...one Saturday afternoon in late December, I was so frustrated by jamming so many spots into the hour, I went cold into a song with "KFXM..we'll be back with more of your favorite commercials right after this" GM Bob Bunnell happened to be there in his office that Saturday afternoon...he came running into the control room...."Uh Greg, we feel bad enough about all the inventory we're running....I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't bring it to everyone's attention like that....." Shortly after, I was canned and moved from the 6-midnight shift back to weekends....

Another KFXM commercial load story....Back when Cal Stereo opened their San Bernardino store ("right on the corner...right on the price") Tom Campbell became KFXM/KDUO's bestest buddy with all the business he was throwing their way. KFXM ran the high-energy Tom Campbell spots; KDUO (beautiful music FM sister) recut them in a low-key manner. Tom Campbell had the hotline number and every so often he'd call up the jock to request that more Cal Stereo spots be added to the commercial log on top of what was already running - "Hey Greg, Tom Campbell here. How ya doin'? Would you please add 2 more Cal Stereo spots to the 4-5PM hour? Thanks buddy!" Anything for Tom!

We'd add them for him and the KFXM cash register would ring again! Howard Tullis must have loved those days! It was cha-chinggggg all year long.

Thank you again Bill for the information about Greg Mitchell and his days at KFXM