The World of Cruizin'
In the decade after WW II the GIs came home and started their civilian lives. Automobiles were a big part of that and the “hot rod” and music culture caught so well in the film “American Graffiti” dominated the teen scene. Top 40 Radio was in the driver’s seat in more ways than one. More importantly, it was in the dashboard of nearly every car that was driven by teenagers. All over the country teenagers drove around listening to their radio. Gas was cheap and cruizin’ was the in thing! In the late 50s and early 60s, restaurateurs began cashing in on the cruizin’ phenomena by building and operating drive-in restaurants. Drive-in, to be clear was different from the drive-thru restaurants of today with the possible exception of the Sonic Drive-Ins that have tele-trays in addition to the drive-through common to other fast food operations.
Drive-in restaurants were all about providing a place to park those hot rods and congregate. And boy did the 50s and 60s kids congregate. It was their place, catering to them. In Columbia, SC, a strong cruizin’ culture developed primarily between drive-ins operated by a pair of Brothers, Doug and Gene Broome. In 1966 Gene Broome operated Gene’s Pig and Chick on Blossom Street just to the left as you headed towards the bridge going into Cayce. Doug Broome operated Doug Broome’s Drive-in on North Main Street at Confederate Ave. As a draw for the cruisers, each had a contract with a local radio station to have a remote broadcast from their locations. Gene had “The Blossom Street Beat” on WNOK and Doug had “The Nightbeat Show” on WCOS. These two cruizin’ Mecca’s were separated by 25 blocks that sported never-ending traffic between the two.
In 1967, Doug decided to open a second location on Beltline Blvd. near the corner of Two Notch. A Burger King was directly across the street and an A&W Root Beer outlet was next door. In an effort to dominate the businesses there, Doug decided to move the Nightbeat Show from the Main Street location to the new location. And he wanted to have the DJ more accessible to his customers, so instead of building another booth on top of the restaurant, he placed it right there in the parking lot right at the end of the first row of teletrays. The 12’ x 12’ booth was made of cinderblock and sported 4’ x 8’ windows on three of the four sides. The back of the booth had a window mount heater and A/C unit mounted directly in the wall next to the door to the booth. The parking space behind the booth was reserved for the DJ. Very convenient!
Sometime in the summer or fall of 67, Woody came to me and said that our jock out at Doug’s was leaving the station and offered me the Nightbeat Show Monday through Saturday from 8 PM until 1 AM. Fortunately, I had just purchased my first car, a 1964 Plymouth Sedan with a hideous lime green paint job. So I jumped on it. I was still in the Navy Reserves so I had to make arrangements with the Navy to come in during the day one day a week and help the staff rather than attending the weekly formal drills.
Five hours per day, 6 days a week amounted only to 30 hours a week. The other 10 consisted of helping out with production and managing the distribution of the paper “Top Sixty in Dixie” record charts to the local music and drug stores. I needed that car for that as well.
During that period, Woody’s afternoon drive show, a countdown of the “Top Sixty in Dixie” ended at 6:55 PM. It was followed by Mike Rast doing a live newscast from the FM studio, then he switched over to the AM Master Control Studio to run the board for the syndicated Joe Pyne talk show on tape. At 6:55 PM, he would do another live newscast and then throw the switch on the board that put the Nightbeat Show from Doug’s on the air. There was no delay in radio at the time so I could hear what he was doing and when he turned the station over to me via a pair of headphones I had plugged into my Motorola tabletop AM/FM radio. On the half-hour, I would pitch the station back to Mike for a two to three-minute headline newscast. And there was a standard 5-minute newscast done the same way at five minutes to each hour.
So, just after 7 each evening I would grab a teletype paper box and stuff it with the Top Sixty 45 RPM records in their wireframe record holder that normally sat on top of the Master Control audio console, a stack of new cartridge tapes with commercials that were starting that night and the short stack of “Up and Coming” and “Solid Gold” records in their green paper slaves. Finally, I would add the latest weather forecast from the weather teletype and the latest sports news from the AP teletype. I would listen to Mike’s top-of-the-hour newscasts for the current temperature which was updated only once in an hour by the USWS at the time. Two nights a week, I would also add a copy of the latest headlines from the AP wire and do the 8:30 newscast myself as Mike would be busy in the FM studio recording George Buck’s Jazz shows those nights.
At the end of the day, it was the opposite routine, Put all the stuff except for the new commercials back into the box and add the commercials that were ending that day, Collect $21 in cash from Arthur Broome, the manager of the restaurant and drive back to the station as quickly as I could while the “All Night Satellite” jock started the overnight shift playing songs from cartridges until I got back. I typically arrived back at the studios a tad before 1:30 AM, gave the records to our guy on the air, placed the $21 under the bookkeeper's locked office door, and called it a night.
I loved that show! It had it all: face-to-face interaction with the drive-in’s customers right there at the door of the announce booth, taking hastily written requests on napkins usually stained with mustard, catsup, or Pepsi. It was during this time, that I got hooked on taking requests, something that is a hallmark of my shows today. It’s not unusual to receive 10 requests during my 2 hour oldies show on WUSC-FM on Monday Mornings today. I admit that today it is a bit neater, instead of napkins; I get them on the studio phone line, over Facebook, and occasionally a text message.
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Photo Credits:
Doug Broome's Drive-In: https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
Gene's Pig N' Chick Drive-In: http://columbiaclosings.com/wo...
"Good Guy of the Week": Provided by Rick Wrigley
I was born in a great Radio Town; Jacksonville Florida. So it was only natural that I joined WUSC (AM at the time) in my first semester 1963. I went on to a career in commercial radio and television in Columbia, WCOS AM & FM, WIS-TV, WIS Radio, SCETV and PBS. I'm retired now, giving back since 2010 to the station that started my career, WUSC-FM. If you did the math you will know that I celebrated the 60th anniversary of my first radio show ever in November 2023.