On this day in 1958 radio station KWK in St Loius announced that Rock ‘n’ roll was to be banned from their air waves. According to the station manager, Robert T Convey (along with most Brits I find the American habit of using their middle initial faintly comical. I would never refer to myself as Phil A Stutt, Phil Stutt is much more natural, as would Robert Convey – but I digress, again) said that their action was “a simple weeding out of undesirable music”. It was certainly simple, and short sighted, and so wrong.

The station was playing rock ‘n’ roll a couple of years later.

Coincidentally on this day in 1958 the Silhouettes released a rock ‘n’ roll classic “Get a Job”. I have no data on Mr Convey’s job status after he decided to ban R ‘n’ R.

In ’78 KWK hired an interesting character to work for them. Bobby Hattrik was employed to programme the music and wanted to make KWK one of the foremost rock stations. Apart from his talent for programing and understanding what the listeners wanted he was also quite creative. He pioneered calling listeners to undertake polls (called outcall research). There are also stories stories of him phoning listeners in the middle of the night and posing as a caller from rival radio stations. He also ran battle of the bands spots.  He would play tracks from 2 bands and ask the audience who they preferred. If he felt that the audience was wrong he would over ride their votes and go for the band he liked most – sounds like my type of guy.

He was murdered in 1986.