The WKYE / WBCV
Tribute Page
NOT affiliated with anyone
associated with this radio station in its past or present, or any
other stations which now have these call letters
In 1986 my dad, evangelist Cecil Reed, began working at gospel station WBCV, 1550AM in Bristol, Tennessee as sales manager. Later that year, he became the morning DJ as well - a job he would hold on to until 2005, when the station came under new ownership. During his time there, I tagged along sometimes. I got to put my hands on some of the reel-to-reel tapes dating back to the station's days under previous ownership and previous call letters. It started out as WKYE. Before it became gospel in 1980, it played different kinds of music in its history, either country or rock. Along the way, I got to dub a few old WKYE and WBCV airchecks and program material in the production room. In 2005, when WBCV was about to be bought out, I took some reel-to-reel tapes from there home with me - including a couple of airchecks of WKYE. I'd like to share the interesting things I got from there on this page. I admit I have a miniscule amount of material to claim to have a "tribute page", and I definitely don't claim to be any kind of "historian" about this station. It's just that I have some interesting things to put in here, and hope everyone out there enjoys it.
The Silver Dollar Kid - Sept. 14, 1974 (19:47, 4.7MB) Here is the first of 2 airchecks of WKYE as a country station. The station was sponsoring a Charlie Rich concert at the time. The news report at the end may have had to do with Nixon's phlebitis. As you'll notice in these airchecks, 1974 must've been a time when a lot of country versions of pop/rock songs were recorded ("Oh How Happy", "Having My Baby", "Ruby Red Dress", etc.)
The Silver Dollar Kid - Sept. 30, 1974 (20:55, 5MB) The sound quality on this aircheck is not as clear as the 1st one, but this one has advantages : the commercials weren't scoped as heavily, and this has one of Shirley Lightfoot's weather reports in its entirety! One big highlight is when "Silver" sings football scores!
Jingle package, 1976 Here are all the jingles in a package made for WKYE, recorded in 1976. I forgot the name of the company that made these. Some of them were used in the next 2 airchecks. The jingles came in 3 versions, each with more reverb than the last. I tried to dub the versions with the least reverb - and the least print-through, which this tape has since suffered.
Chris Hicks / Bill Byrd demo, 1977 (5:00, 1.2 MB) This is a demo tape, including a WKYE aircheck, from DJ Chris Hicks. He sounds like the same guy who worked as Chris Lee during KYE's last days as a rock station in 1980.
WKYE aircheck - Fri. Feb. 10, 1978 (8:53, 2.1 MB) This one is interesting for me because it mentions Washington Co., Va. schools being in session on Saturday. I remember 2 times while I went to High Point Elementary School in Bristol, Va. in the 70's when we went to school on Saturday, so this is most likely one of those times. Also of note: Somebody who didn't know any better probably typed "Mamas & Papas" on the cart label of "Midnight Confessions" (It was by the Grass Roots). Disco was pretty big at this time as well.
WKYE aircheck - Chris Lee, May 8, 1980 (22:53, 5.4 MB) "DIALOG" ADVISORY This is the 1st of 3 airchecks I have from May, 1980 - less than a month before WKYE was bought and became a gospel station. At this time, it called itself "Southland KYE", indicating it was a southern-rock station. This includes 2 ABC newscasts dealing with, among other things, the Iran hostage situation and the Cuban "boat people". Now, there's something this guy says coming out of Linda Ronstadt's "Hurts So Bad", near the end of the aircheck, that is - at the least - interesting, thus my "dialog advisory".
Chris Lee - May 9, 1980 (5:35, 1.3 MB) Here's the second of the 3 1980 airchecks. Coke and Pepsi seemed to be the prominent sponsors of the station at this point. The sound suffers from distortion, but I hope it will prove an interesting find from this period in the station's history.
Chris Lee - May 10, 1980 (29:18, 7MB) At this point, I've gotta wonder when the news was starting to get out about the new ownership and impending format change of the station. There are times when Chris all but begs for somebody to call the request line! This aircheck contains an ABC newscast and parts of 2 more, and an ABC sportscast. It sounds OK at first, then becomes distorted later on (That part was recorded on side 2 of the reel containing the May 9 aircheck). And remember, folks - "Until you've tried Orange Crush, you ain't tried."
WKYE goes gospel, then becomes WBCV
I recently received an E-mail from Chuck Lawson, who has worked different jobs in radio from DJ to engineer and in-between during his decades in Tri-Cities radio, and he gives some interesting insight on WKYE during its last year as a rock station. (Thanks, Chuck, for letting me share this on the web page!)
"I worked at WKYE 3 times, 1973, 1974, and 1979-80. In 79, I began working part-time and was full-time within one month. We knew that Bill Tilley was selling the station. Everyone started jumping ship. Bill Cramer was doing mornings at that time and was the second person to leave going to WXBQ, after midday jock, Sara Hobbs who moved to North Carolina. I moved to mornings and was the music director during the Southland format. The pd was Tony Ray and he pulled afternoons. Mark St. Clair was brought in to replace Sara. We had 2 part-timers, Chris Hicks and Kevin Nickols. The format was actually very good and the station actually showed up in the ratings for the first time in several years. Bill Tilley began to regret the decision to sell off the station at that point, but the wheels were in motion. Tony Ray left and went to WJCW as PD. At this time, I was appointed manager and PD of Southland KYE. We were trying to keep the station on and operating as usual under extreme disadvantages. The word began to leak out that Bud Carrigan was taking over the station and changing the format to gospel. The listeners, who were mostly "good ole southern boys" were furious at the news. Mr. Carrigan started coming into the station on a daily basis trying to tell us what to do, even though he had not taken ownership yet. It finally got to the point that I had to throw him out of the building. I dropped the Southland slogan and went to K-Rock 1550 for the last month. There were no format restrictions and the jocks were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted. There is a lot more to the story, but I will just say there was a protest in downtown Bristol by the listeners one day. It was really a great "WKRP" kind of moment in time. This happened on a Friday and Carrigan was to take over operations on Monday. Bill Tilley called me into his office at Bristol Steel that Friday afternoon and told me to go ahead and leave. He knew I would not work for Carrigan. He told me how much he appreciated all I had done for him and the station and actually was laughing about the protest. Also, he congratulated me for kicking Carrigan out of the building earlier as it was against FCC rules for him to set foot in the building until he actually owned the station. It is still a fond memory of my early days in radio."
And so, on June 1, 1980, WKYE became a gospel station.
I received an E-Mail from former WBCV DJ Scott Spangler, who set me straight on when the station changed call letters, as well as other interesting information! (Thanks to Scott for letting me put this here!)
"That, in fact, happened in either 80 or 81 when the station moved from the Arcade Building to the upstairs studio on 6th Street. Bud Carrigan had already purchased the station and Danny Creech was the PD/GM and hired me in May of 81. I had just turned 15 at the time and was working from 6-11 AM on Saturdays and Sundays. A man named Keith Young was also working there as was a guy named Paul Miller... By September of 81, Paul Miller was gone, as was a girl named Mary Marshall... Danny Creech had me go on during the afternoons from 4 PM til sign-off... I've been away from Bristol for the most part since 1988... I am now a Funeral Director and own my own funeral home in Indiana"
In 1982, church pastor Jennings Dotson became the new owner and General Manager.
One DJ who was with the station under both
country and gospel formats was the late, great "Jimbo"
Widener. He was also the interviewer / reporter for WBCV's high-school
football review show, which aired Friday afternoons. The way it
usually went was: During the week, Jimbo would begin taking his
casette recorder to all the local high schools and interviewed
the football coaches. He used these casettes that were a few
minutes long to record each interview. Then on Friday afternoon
he went to WBCV to put the show together on reel-to-reel before
airtime at 5:30.
Jimbo's last run on WBCV was as Doug McCracken's co-host on
"Bluegrass Gospel Time" from 2000-02. Jimbo died at age
72 on Jan. 25, 2002. A great talent who is deeply missed.
Here are some of the high-school football review
shows:
Big 6
High School Football Report, 1984 (27:27, 6.5 MB) This really takes me back
hearing this - a buffet at Squire Pizza (which sadly went out of
business a few years later) for $2.99, and when Todd Daggs &
Chip King were big names at Tennessee High. The tape on the reel
was short, and ran out during the 5th school's report. I can only
assume the casette tape of the last interview was played over the
air after this one ended.
Big 6 High
School Football Review - Last show of the 1985 season (27:21, 6.5 MB) Here, Jimbo does
all the reviews himself, except for the John S. Battle &
Abingdon High coaches, who had at least one more game to play. By
this time, Squire Pizza's buffet went up to $3.09. This year may
also have been the beginning of the hard luck of Sullivan East,
who won very few games until they finally picked back up in the
late 80's. Definitely a far cry from their near-championship year
of 2005!
Big 6 High
School Football Review - 1st show of the 1987 season (23:58, 5.7 MB) Of note: My dad
works with Jimbo on the commercial for Hayworth Tire and by
himself for Campbell Ford, the wind outside John S. Battle High
School hits the microphone hard, and Jimbo reads the material for
the Abingdon High review out of the newspaper.
Big 6 High
School Football Review - 2nd show of the 1987 season (26:01, 6.2 MB) I'm sure someone
out there will E-Mail me if I'm wrong, but I am under the
impression that this was a winless year for Sullivan East. They
kept losing game after game, and their coach did not want to be
interviewed for these reviews. As the season wore on, Jimbo would
always cheerlead for them every week by saying "East is
gonna win that big game someday!" And you gotta love the
good ol' band music - none of that alt / hip-hop nonsense you
hear nowadays in high-school sports programming.
Cecil Reed aircheck, 1987 Here, my dad goes over the Sunday morning program schedule.
In 2005, Rick Mitchell became the new owner/GM. Rick was a weatherman on WCYB-TV in Bristol, Va. in the 80's. He was GMing a gospel station in Florida before moving back to this area to helm this station.
Here are airchecks of the last couple of weeks of
my dad, Cecil Reed, DJing at WBCV in 2005. The station was going
to put the Solid Gospel network on, and my dad was spending these
last few weeks there before the network finally got put
in. At this time the station had a new transmitter, which seems
to have picked up humming from the cart machine that didn't seem
to go over on the older transmitters - and yes, that was me doing
those ID's. "Voice of Victory" used to be a live
devotional program with church pastor Austin Cook. He didn't do
the programs live at this point, but the church still sponsored
the time, in which my dad played a few songs by a certain group
each day (usually The Inspirations) and announced the church
services. One mainstay on Dad's "Morning Gospel Jubilee"
was the phoned-in recipes from "Sis. Patrick", who was
a faithful listener to WBCV. She called my dad just about every
morning since he started working there, and sometime in the 90's
she began calling in a recipe every day on the air.
When you hear the clips from after the move to the new building,
I hope you can bear with the repeated mentions of the new address,
phone number, and E-Mail address. I figured I'd put in as much of
my dad's talking as possible, from his last days at the station.
NOTE: I recorded these shortly before my old computer broke down, so there are a few of those audio skips that happened to the sound files I recorded at that time.
Tue.,
June 21, 2005 (27:05, 6.5MB)
Actually, Jennings Dotson couldn't stand "Old Chunk of Coal"
- so much so that the song was "banned" from airplay on
the station. He did, however, have a sense of humor about it.
Wed., June 22,
2005 (23:39, 5.6MB)
Note my dad saying that the "Trailblazer" broadcast was
"ready to go", then the cassette-taped program had
trouble getting started.
Thur., June 23,
2005 (30:36, 7.3MB)
This was the last day in the 6th St. building. My dad made a
point of mentioning the date a lot because he knew I was
recording him and that I wanted to get the last date on 6th St.
on the tape. No-one really knew how long my dad would stay at the
station, we just thought "a few days". It wound up
being another couple of weeks. I love Jennings' creative use of
slow music to represent print shops "dragging their feet"!
Fri., June 24,
2005 (9:31, 2.2MB)
The 1st day in the new location on Euclid Ave. The connection to
get the telephone on the air wasn't in the new building yet, so
Sis. Patrick didn't have the recipes for a while. Doug McCracken
makes an appearance.
Mon., June 27,
2005 (16:10, 3.8MB)
He accidently kept the microphone up during a song.
Tue., June 28,
2005 (22:13, 5.3MB)
Because of the setup of the new studio, the control room and the
production room were one and the same. A wrong flip of the switch,
and what you were recording went over the air. This is what
happened to Dad while this day's "Gospel Voice"
broadcast was on. At the end of this clip, you can hear Dad on
the air while recording the birthday winner and the weather
forecast.
Wed., June 29,
2005 (21:41, 5.2MB)
Doug McCracken makes an appearance.
Thur., June 30,
2005 (22:18, 5.3MB)
Doug McCracken makes another appearance. At the end you hear a
few seconds of dead air while waiting for the music on the
computer to kick on. At this point, the ID's I recorded were only
played during computer automation.
Fri., July 1,
2005 (20:19, 4.8MB)
Bro. Freddie Booher of the "Born to Serve the Lord"
broadcast makes an appearance.
Mon. July 4,
2005 (37:28, 8.9MB)
The clip starts with another microphone-during-a-song blooper.
"Yogi" Keeling, a veteran, made his usual 4th of July
appearance live in the studio talking with Dad.
Tue., July 5,
2005 (30:17, 7.2MB)
The connection to put the telephone on the air was in, so now Sis.
Patrick gave out recipes again.
Wed., July 6,
2005 (26:49, 6.4MB)
Dad thought this would be his last day here, but they couldn't
get the network on yet, so he stayed on at least the next couple
of days.
Thur., July 7,
2005 (25:18, 6MB)
The network wasn't in yet, so Dad had one more day. Dad records
"In Memoriam", WBCV's radio obituary, while unknowingly
going over the air during the "Open Bible Hour"
broadcast.
The next morning after I woke up, I turned on the
radio beside my bed, and I heard Dad talking on the air. So that
wasn't really his last morning shift after all. But I think
Friday, July 8 was his last "Morning Gospel Jubilee". I
was just too tired to get up to record him. Earlier in June, he
had what we thought were his last days there, and it was not to
be. I just didn't want to record him again with another
"last day". But this did turn out to be his last
morning shift. I feel bad to this day that I didn't record his
last morning show.
The "Christian Connection" program on Saturdays lasted
only 3 weeks, so that makes Saturday, July 16, 2005 my dad's last
day on the station, unless you count his preaching appearance on
July 25.
Cecil Reed is still an evangelist preaching in different churches,
with some standing appointments every month - and room for more
if he can get them. He's also a hospital chaplain and volunteers
with Raceway Ministries during the 2 major race-times a year in
Bristol. He is part of Missions for Christ, a Bristol-based
missionary organization, and goes to Jamaica for a couple of
weeks every year. He also works at a job helping with remodeling
homes and businesses in Bristol and the surrounding area.
Shortly after my dad's time there, the call letters were changed to WIGN, for "Winning in God's Name".