|
| Affiliation | Nonpartisan |
|
| Name | Ron "Whodaguy" Jacobs |
| Address |
Kaneohe, Hawai'i , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
September 03, 1937
|
| Died | March 08, 2016
(78 years)
|
| Contributor | Barack O-blame-a |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Jul 02, 2021 04:42pm |
| Tags |
|
| Info | Ronald Herbert "Ron" "Whodaguy" Jacobs
A native of Honolulu, Ron Jacobs began broadcasting as a high-school reporter at the age of 15. He was issued his FCC license on December 24, 1953. Jacobs’ professional radio career began as the all-night disc jockey at KHON Radio, when he dropped out of high school. Soon he was hired as an announcer by NBC affiliate KGU Radio and correspondent for the network's renowned Monitor. At KGU, Jacobs first worked with future Hawaii radio personality, concert impresario, and record producer, Tom Moffatt.
Two years later, in 1957, Henry J. Kaiser hired Jacobs and Moffatt to play rock 'n' roll music in Hawaii over his new KHVH Radio. There the young deejays met Elvis Presley and his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Jacobs and Moffatt would remain close to the famed showman for 40 years. They served as honorary pallbearers at the Colonel’s funeral in 1997.
Jacobs joined KPOA Radio in 1958 at the age of 20. He was Hawaii’s youngest Program Director. It was there that Jacobs worked with trailblazing radio executives, Bill Gavin, then producing Lucky Lager Dance Time, and radio’s first programming consultant, Mike Joseph.
In 1959, Jacobs launched K-POI Radio as its original Program Director. The fabled station was Hawaii’s first Top 40 outlet. For the first six months, Jacobs also was the morning man, afternoon-drive deejay and handled all production chores. The station’s news director was Tom Rounds. In six months K-POI reached the top of the ratings.
Although he achieved the pinnacle of radio in his hometown by age 23, Jacobs’ drive and eagerness to learn took him to the mainland. In 1962 he was promoted by the Colgreene Corporation to vice president of programming. Fine-tuning his format and promotional concepts, Jacobs put them to use at KMEN Radio in San Bernardino, CA, and three months later, at KMAK Radio in Fresno. Within months, both stations were rated Number One.
Radio consultant Bill Drake, a former Fresno competitor, called upon Jacobs’ abilities in March 1965. Looking forward to what the two former adversaries could accomplish as a team, Drake hired Jacobs, then 27, to program KHJ Radio in Los Angeles. Within six months, KHJ attained the Number One position in America’s second largest market. At the prestigious RKO General outlet, the Drake-Jacobs "Boss Radio" format achieved national recognition as the most influential pop sound of the 1960s.
At KHJ, Jacobs produced the 48-hour special, The History of Rock And Roll, radio's first "Rockumentary," a term Jacobs coined to describe the much-imitated broadcast. Pete Johnson left the Los Angeles Times as pop-music critic to script the program. For decades there have been many attempts to replicate this landmark broadcast. KHJ’s Robert W. Morgan narrated the original version in 1969.
While still at Boss Radio, Jacobs joined with Moffatt and Rounds to form Charlatan Productions. Ten years before MTV was on the scene, the firm produced more than 30 “concept” films featuring recording artists in eye-catching settings and situations. “My favorite was shot in a deserted Santa Monica lighthouse,” Jacobs recalls. “It was Jimi Hendrix doing All Along the Watchtower. This most bizarre flick featured Aretha Franklin in a rowboat in a small lake in Echo Park,” says Jacobs.
After four years atop the L.A. radio ratings, Jacobs left KHJ for a new role. He co-founded and became vice president of Watermark, Inc. In 1970, with Tom Rounds and Casey Kasem, Jacobs co-created American Top 40, which enjoyed a 25-year run. AT40 evolved to become the most widely syndicated program in radio history.
At Watermark, Jacobs also produced the award-winning Elvis Presley Story, written by noted rock author Jerry Hopkins and narrated by broadcast personality Wink Martindale. The program earned the distinction of being the first American production purchased by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Next, Jacobs began a long-dreamed-of project: A 13-album record series entitled CRUISIN': A History of Rock'n'Roll Radio. Each LP recreated a disc-jockey show starring an air personality who had attained regional dominance during Top 40 music’s budding years. Besides the hits, each album included authentic retro radio commercials.
Jacobs produced several other records at Watermark’s “Farm Studio,” which was built by an aspiring actor named Harrison Ford. Another of the eclectic catalog was the cult classic, A Child's Garden of Grass, for Elektra Records. Jacobs also produced Key: An Album of Invisible Theater, the debut album of internationally renowned performance artist Meredith Monk and Music From Another Present Era, the first recording by the jazz ensemble Oregon.
There would be one more stop before Jacobs would return home to Honolulu. That was KGB AM/FM Radio in San Diego, owned by broadcast pioneer Willet Brown. Within months of Jacobs taking the reins of KGB, the station was Number One. In 1972 the sold-out KGB Charity Ball in then-San Diego Stadium was the largest public-service concert in California's history.
Ron Jacobs has been involved in concert production and promotion since 1964 when he, Moffatt, and Rounds formed Arena Associates. They staged the first rock show in the Honolulu International Center, now known as the Blaisdell Arena. In 1968, the company produced the Miami Pop Festival, largest event of its kind at the time and the forerunner of The 1969 Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which was staffed by many of the Miami Pop crew.
Over the years, Jacobs presented the brightest stars on both sides of the Pacific at such venues as the Waikiki Shell, Honolulu Civic Auditorium, Hollywood Bowl, Hollywood Palladium, San Diego Stadium, the Orange County Show Grounds, Fresno State Fair and Grauman’s Chinese Theater.
On stage, Jacobs appeared at age eight in the former Honolulu Community Theater’s production of The Night of January 16th.. Young RJ was The Newsboy. The HCT staged its productions in a ballroom at the Moana Hotel. Following World War II, the U.S. Army gave the organization the movie theater at Fort Ruger, Honolulu.
In 1958, famed dancer Peggy Ryan invited Jacobs, then living in Hawaii, to play the second lead in the HCT’s production of The Music Man, the most ambitious musical staged by a local company. Punahou School made their Dillingham Hall Theater available, the only time in the school’s history to do so. The now-classic musical played first away from Broadway in Honolulu thanks to Ryan’s friendship with the show’s creator, Meredith Wilson, who attended closing night.
While programming KGB-FM, one of the first profitable album-oriented stations, Jacobs conceived and produced the original Home Grown album. Winners were chosen from hundreds of entrants in this song contest. It was the first American Idol -type competition, light years ahead of its time.
Home Grown gave raw, young talent a chance to be heard on the radio, and possibly go on to record. Some winners in San Diego and Honolulu went on to have successful show business careers. The first was Michael Damian, whose group, The Weirs, was selected for the first album. The singer/actor moved north to Hollywood and became a true international idol, starting with his long run on the CBS soap opera, The Young and the Restless.
A KGB listener (now top U.S. film writer/director Cameron Crowe) wrote the first Home Grown liner notes. In 1973 the album became the largest-selling album in San Diego history. (Annually, each album was the subject of a TV special.) For more than 30 years the proprietary project was repeated in other U. S. cities where it also benefited charities.
In 1959, using the large KPOI studio, Jacobs wrote and produced the first Pidgin English Rock and Roll records, that included Da Kine, about Hawaii’s delayed entrance into the United States. Jacobs produced Hawaii rock hits by “Lance Curtis” (soon after known by his real name, Dick Jensen) and others. Jacobs also co-wrote This Song of Love, still available on Alfred Apaka’s Greatest Hits, featuring the Islands’ greatest vocalist of the 1950s and 60s.
The KGB Chicken, later known to the nation as "The San Diego Chicken,” was also hatched from Jacob's fertile imagination. In 1972, Ron Jacobs was honored by Billboard as Program Director of the Year. A documentary about Max Yasgur, on whose farm the Woodstock festival was staged, won Program of the Year honors. Two years later, Billboard named KGB, Station of the Year.
Jacobs instituted the album project when he returned to Hawaii several years later — where he re-emerged on KKUA as Whodaguy Ron Jacobs. “I couldn’t wait to bring this project back home considering the great response I had over the years in San Diego. The concept brings exposure to new musical and graphic artists, which was always exciting to me,” says Jacobs.
In July 1976, 21 years after Jacobs began his radio career, he was again behind the mike in Honolulu doing morning drive on KKUA Radio. With Jacobs also serving as Program Director, the station became Number One in the ratings by November. Jacobs successfully introduced his Home Grown concept to Hawaii. For this, he was honored by the local recording industry with a Na Hoku Hanohano Award — the Hawaiian Grammy — in the first year of its existence.
Hawaii’s first Home Grown breakout artist was Noelani Cipriano, who earned a record contract based on the popularity of her winning entry, “Lihue.” Ten slack-key guitar players contributed performances on the CD that won the first Grammy awarded for Hawaiian music. Four performed on Home Grown albums released by KKUA, KDEO or KRTR: John Keawe, Ken Emerson, Jeff Peterson and John Cruz.
Jacobs’ TV career began when he hosted the Coca-Cola Record Hop on KHVH-TV, owned by Henry J Kaiser. A 16mm original negative of one of the programs from the series is in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum, classified in the archives as Hawaii’s earliest sound-on-film specimen.
In 1977, Jacobs expanded his involvement with television. He produced and hosted Home Grown TV specials; a half-hour documentary on contemporary Hawaiian music entitled Slack Key and Other Notes and a quarterly magazine-format series, Pictures of Paradise, for CBS affiliate, KGMB-TV. The program won local recognition and several national Clio Awards.
The Hawaii State Legislature recognized Jacobs for his cultural contributions in the area of Hawaiian music. The Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu honored him with a “Ron Jacobs Day.”
In 1981, Jacobs launched KDEO Radio as Hawaii's only full-time country music station, "the Western-most country station in the nation." Within six months, KDEO ranked among the top ten stations in the state.
In 1985, in conjunction with Hawaii's visitor industry, Jacobs conceived, wrote and produced a nationwide radio promotion, The Hawaiian Chief. The contest ran in 48 markets in the continental United States under the sponsorship of American Airlines and Sheraton Hotels.
From 1935 through 1975, Hawaii Calls was the most-listened-to radio show in the world. In 1992 the program returned for a one-year run. Broadcast live each week from Waikiki Beach, the show featured live music, dancers, and a studio audience. Jacobs was hired to produce and co-write the show.
After three decades in broadcasting, Jacobs shifted his focus to print. His first book, Backdoor Waikiki, was published in 1986. For seven years he was a contributing editor to both Honolulu and Hawaii magazines. More than 150 of Jacobs’ articles have appeared in both local and national publications.
In 1994, Jacobs returned to the mainland for a final assignment. He joined Radio Express in Los Angeles as Executive Producer of The World Chart Show. By the end of 1995, The World Chart Show was heard on 360 stations in 54 countries, with co-productions in 27 different languages.
In April 1997, having successfully launched another groundbreaking syndicated program, Jacobs returned home to Honolulu, pledging to stay. He produced Home Grown ‘97 for KRTR-FM and an inter-Island network of stations. Profits from the CD of previous Island Home Grown records, went to Habilitat, a rehabilitation facility located in Kaneohe.
On February 9, 1998, Jacobs joined KCCN-AM 1420 as host of the morning-drive show. A year later, the station changed to an all-sports format. Jacobs left the airwaves after spanning five decades in broadcasting.
While serving as a consultant to stations, “Where I have friends with e-mail who need a little assistance,” Jacobs works on “the book that everyone has been urging me to write.” He says, “It’s a surreal, serial autobiography titled From Doo Wop to Duopoly, that keeps drifting away from anything to do with radio. It has no publisher, no deadline, and half the time I can’t find it on my hard drive.”
In February 2002, Zapoleon Publishing, Stafford, TX, released KHJ: Inside Boss Radio, a 407-page narrative and series of oral-history interviews covering Jacobs’ tenure at Boss Radio, with hundreds of memos and graphics.
Jacobs has lived in Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii since 1997. He contributes regularly to a Web site maintained for him by Radio Daily News and consults mainland stations,
“With the ever-expanding technology – monitoring on streaming audio, I can e-mail copy in a few seconds from Kaneohe to Chicago – quantum speeds faster than I could in L. A., where memos sometimes took a day to travel upstairs via the mailroom,” says Jacobs.
Discovering 35mm photography while living in Hong Kong in the mid-1960s, Jacobs became an avid amateur photographer. Back in Hawaii, he put his camera on the shelf and over 19 years, built up the largest collection of antique Hawaiian soda bottles, the oldest known specimens dating back to the 19th century.
Jacobs says, “Selling the bottles helped put my daughter through Iolani, Northwestern University and New York University, where she earned her master degree.” Miki`ala Jacobs, now married, teaches school in Middlebury, CT. Her first child was born in September 2005.
With digital photography having equaled “wet film,” Jacobs again focuses on photography. His photos will be included in A Century of Aloha: Honolulu 1905-2005, to be released by Mutual Publishing in early 2006. Local and mainland magazines are now including photos of what Jacobs calls, “Unseen Hawaii.”
With a “sly mongoose” grin, Ron Jacobs says, “And then there’s the super-secret project to which I am sworn to secrecy.” The world premier is scheduled for Summer 2007.
[Link]
[Link] |
 | BOOKS |
 |
|
| Title |
Purchase |
Contributor |
|
| Start Date |
End Date |
Type |
Title |
Contributor |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
| INFORMATION LINKS |
|
|
|
