Airwaves: December 3rd, 2010
The Last Interview
It’s the morning of December 8th, 1980. At the time, KFRC/San Francisco
was one of the most highly-rated and respected top-40 music stations in America
-- it would be almost six years before owner RKO would hire a consultant
named Walter Sabo to totally destroy the station ... which he did in one year.
But in 1980, KFRC was the number one station in the Bay Area by a long shot,
and its signal was the only one to fully reach all parts of The City. What
better station to help promote a new album?
So programmer Dave Sholin and staffers Laurie Kaye, Ron Hummel and Bert
Keane board a plane to New York. They arrive in the Big Apple and head
straight over to the interview location, an apartment building called The Dakota.
It’s about 12:30 PM when they are led into the apartment for the interview,
an interview arranged by Geffen Records designed primarily to help promote
the launch of the album Double Fantasy by John Lennon.
It would be Lennon’s last interview.
Just hours after the conclusion of the interview, and a short time after the
four KFRC employees left Lennon and Yoko Ono at their recording studio
-- they gave the couple a lift in the limo before heading off to fly back to
San Francisco, Lennon was gunned down by Mark David Chapman.
Sholin didn’t learn about the murder until he landed back in San Francisco
and was listening to his car radio; the event changed the best day of his life
into his worst. He became an instant national celebrity, going on Good Morning
America to give the details of the Last Interview. The interview itself, obviously
changing in focus, was edited down to a three-hour program celebrating the
life of Lennon, and was aired on KFRC as well as many other RKO owned and affiliated
stations nationwide.
In memory of the Lennon’s death, ReelRadio.Com is presenting the
original three-hour radio program interview on its Aircheck Channel stream,
located at www.reelradio.com/aircheckchannel. The plan right now is to stream
it four times between the hours of 9 AM and 9 PM on Wednesday, December 8th.
It will be for subscribers only, but the subscription rate is ridiculously
low -- as much as you want but as little as $15 per year for unlimited access
to hundreds of radio station airchecks.
Additionally, beginning December 5th, ReelRadio will have available the entire
three hours of the Dr. Don Rose morning show that originally aired on
December 9, 1980. Portions of the Sholin interview were played on Dr. Don’s
show as well. For that go to the main page of www.reelradio.com.
While I’m on the subject, for radio junkies like me, ReelRadio is a treasure
chest full of memories of great radio from the past. If you’re looking
for an unusual gift for your favorite radio geek, this might be just the ticket.
Epilogue
One of the things that struck me while listening to the three-hour interview
was that this interview would not take place today. Radio like that -- done
by a station that had a personal relationship with every one of its listeners
-- is long gone. There are no stations that are bigger than life any more ...
stations like KFRC, KHJ and even early KIIS-FM; I challenge today’s
programmers to bring it back. Takers? The future of radio itself may depend
on it.
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Copyright © 2010 Richard Wagoner and Los Angeles Newspaper Group.
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