Interview with Brench Boden, February 1, 2013

Jack Fox Interviewing Brench Boden, February 1, 2013

JF: It is Friday, February 1, 2013, a very cold, the old groundhog is going to stay in his hole if he's smart, and we're talking with Brench Boden of WHAS. Quite a span a time you were with WHAS, too, Brench?

BB: Yeah, in and out, back and forth. Started in television.

JF: Oh, is that right?

BB: I had to get a job. My father died. My mother was a stroke. She couldn't work. So all of a sudden I had to come back from the University of the South at Sewanee, and I needed a job.

JF: This was what year did you say? Did you say the year?

BB: I think it was 1959 or so.

JF: Okay.

BB: Um, it could have been '58, but I needed a flexible job, and being a studio director at WHAS television allowed me to take night school, day school, and still work 40 hours.

JF: You're 18 or 19 years old at this time.

BB: Nineteen years old, and I was I was working full time at WHAS television, taking 12 hours University of Louisville, and singing in two different choirs, 1:00and substituting occasionally as a Jewish cantor at the local temple. So I would wake up and not know where I was half the time because---

JF: (laughs) Now, what what qualified you for a job as a a studio director at WHAS television?

BB: ---absolutely nothing.

JF: Well, how did that happen?

BB: They were hiring, well Dave Jones, who was the television director and a real good friend of mine, said they were hiring, but said you probably wouldn't like it. But---

JF: How did you know Dave?

BB: ---Dave was director of the Motet Singers, which was a group we sang as teenagers.

JF: You were singing with them.

BB: We're singing. He was discouraging about that, but I applied anyway, and got in with about 4 or 5 other guys that were. They had an exodus of people in this. I got lucky and was accepted, and I had no experience in that. But---

JF: What did the studio director do?

BB: ---well, it put up sets, lit the sets, gave cues, arranged commercials. It was a lot of little things that uh---

JF: It would be interesting, though.

BB: ---it was fun.

JF: Cause if changed all the time.

BB: Well, yeah, and the thing was back that was back before the days of video tape. It was live.

JF: Oh, yeah.

BB: Nothing was on tape until a couple of years later.

JF: This was still in the studio---

BB: Still in the studio on top of the Courier Journal Building.

JF: ---sixth and Broadway.

BB: The oddest place in the world for a tv studio, but, yeah you learned on the fly because there weren't any take twos. I mean you did it right, and sometimes we had some hilarious disasters.

JF: Tell me about some.

BB: Throwing food up. I can remember there was a kid, and his name was Lee Dean, did commercials for some ice cream company or whatever, and he was supposed to have a dish of ice cream for a close up shot, and I realized it that in the end I had forgotten to get the ice cream. And during the commercial I scooped up a couple of weenie looking pieces of ice cream and and slid and went to the camera in the close up I slid this disgusting looking bowl of this white stuff in at the last minute, and it was embarrassing. I was hiding behind the guy and reaching up. I could bore you with about 20 more tales of live tv, but that's 3:00not what we are about. Talk about radio.

JF: (laughs) Who was working there? Well, we talk about folks, WHAS, the Bingham family, and all that. Who was working there at the time? Do you remember any names?

BB: Oh, I remember a lot of names. The people I worked with. I still keep in touch with Steve Richards, one of my fellow floor directors, studio directors. He lives in San Diego now. Had a successful career as a news producer. And of course, the Bingham family, which will come up in a lot of this narrative because it was my first experience meeting them. And they were a terrific family, often maligned generally by people who didn't know what they were talking about. But, they were involved in that--they were uninvolved. In other words, they hired the best people they possibly could to do the jobs, from the lowliest floor director to a people in the newspaper, and stuff like that. And hopefully they did their jobs; and the Binghams never meddled.

JF: No, they didn't meddle. They didn't dictate policy or---

BB: They didn't dictate policy. As a matter of fact, I can remember. Well, let me say this. The Binghams were probably the only people I've ever met in the world of television, radio, and journalism who actually believed in journalism ethics. I can remember the time when Barry was hunting with his buddies down in southwest Jefferson County, and somehow wandered into Bernheim Forest, and shot Bambi. And there was a a feeling amongst people in the Bingham enterprises that they should bury this story somewhere, because here he is, the heir apparent to the throne. He's known as a progressive kind of guy, and here he is going out to a game preserve and killing a deer. But, the Binghams insisted it appear on page one, because they felt that uh, they weren't going to do anything resembling a cover up. People make misstates. They take responsibility for your actions. Now, 5:00can you imagine that happening today?

JF: Mercy.

BB: Not at all.

JF: Wow.

BB: I can't I can't imagine---

JF: You've got a lot of respect for them, I can tell.

BB: I have tremendous respect for them. You know they were human beings. They had their frailties, made their misstates like everybody else, but they uh, they were true gentlemen and women in every sense of the word, and performed that way. And the way they managed their stations and the newspaper.

JF: That's great. So, you were a studio director.

BB: I was a studio director. Then---

JF: (??) things around. Put ice cream in front of people. How did that progress?

BB: Yeah, then I was stage manager, which meant that the guys I worked with are now working for me. That was a little awkward at first.

JF: Sure.

BB: And then they took me out of the hands on business and made me Director of Continuity Operations because I had an English degree.

JF: What does that mean?

BB: I'm never was sure. It really an assistant to the program director, in which we make changes---

JF: Of television or radio?

BB: ---this was still television.

JF: Oh, really.

BB: And this was not this was pretty easy job, to be honest with you, because I 6:00had a lot of people who worked for me and with me who were thorough professionals. And then came what I refer to as the call. I got a message that I was wanted that my presence was wanted in Barry Bingham, Jr.'s office.

JF: Ooh.

BB: But, I'd seen him and said hello to him. I had no idea what this---

JF: So, it hadn't happened before?

BB: ---no. No, I had no idea what this was about, so I was a little antsy about it. Went down and sat, and Barry was very affable. He was one of those people who did not wait for you to complete a sentence. He would complete it for you.

JF: (laughs)

BB: He was one of those people who was anxious to get on with it. But, it was very interesting conversation in that I came from not knowing anything, and suddenly finding out that they had applied for the last, full-power, FM station frequency. And it was going to be all classical based on what Barry had heard in Washington when he was with NBC-WGMS, I think it was what it was called then. 7:00And since I was the only one who had a degree in Music History as well as English, that I was the only one in the entire building qualified to be the program director of this station.

JF: Now when was this? What year was this? Do you recall?

BB: You know, I wish I could tell you. It was somewhere in the early to mid-sixties, but it you would have to research that. I can't remember exactly. It was all a fog then. We had children.

JF: Still in the old building then?

BB: Still in the old building. We had to hire a couple of capable people to help actually put together the programs. Um, an announcer, all that kind of stuff, the sales person. It was Barry's dream. He really wanted to have something in Louisville that was a commercial station that played only classical music. I think what happened was that once I got over my shock, we put this thing together. What happened was---

JF: You're still a young guy here.

BB: ---yeah, I'm still a young guy, but when you the music end of it, and that wasn't a big problem. The uh, what happened was that a lot of friends of Barry's 8:00promised him that since it's such a wonderful idea that they would support it by buying advertising. A lot of them, most of them, didn't do it, which meant over the nine years of what we called FM WHAS we lost about a million of Barry's money.

JF: Oh, my goodness.

BB: The one funny story that I can remember of that it was the day that we went on the air. It was like one o'clock in the morning; we had everyone on the staff there, the engineers, Barry was there, and it was an automated station, so we had like eight to ten tape recorders.

JF: Now that was pretty, now that was pretty rare.

BB: That was rare back in those days, but it was all designed to not have a constant flow of announcers, disc jockeys, whatever you want to call them. So, we had six reels full of music, commercials, public service announcements, and the announcer track, which I believe you may have done one or two of those yourself.

JF: Yeah, a few of those. I had to get an education to know how to pronounce.

BB: Well, a lot of people did. And came a wonderful moment in the chief engineer 9:00counted down, ten, nine, bla, bla, and wanted to hit the button that started the whole thing. Every tape machine started at once.

JF: Oh.

BB: We had Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, commercials, public service, and an announcer that ran uninhibited through everything. So it was a it was probably a harbinger of what the future of that station was going to be.

JF: (laughs) Do you remember how Barry reacted to that.

BB: Shock. I mean we were all shocked. Of course, some of the engineers were poking buttons trying to figure out what to do, and of course, by that time chaos had intervened and won the day. They stopped and recued it, and they figured out what went wrong. And the second time he tried hitting the button we went on the air with the right with the right production and the right music. But that was it's such a buildup. You can imagine months and months of build up to this wonderful moment where Barry's dream was going to come to fruition, and hits the button and it's the Towers of Babel, right? Bipleoblip.

JF: It was a nightmare.

BB: It was a nightmare, but uh, and that went on for about, you know, we had this station it was, I kept saying pretty well-run station from a programming standpoint, but we just couldn't sell it.

JF: Yeah.

BB: They did they were people who today, you have to remember FM back in those days, was not the big deal it was today.

JF: No, no.

BB: There were some cars, GE, General Motors cars that had FM as a standard feature, but for the most part it was an AM world.

JF: Yeah, hum huh.

BB: So---

JF: Who were some of the people involved in that? In the programming and the engineering and the uh.

BB: Well, my two uh programmers were Bill and Irene Underwood, who were both very very good at what they did. We'd all get into arguments because they were such purists that uh we were trying to also sell things, and when I'd suggested a program of lighter music or excerpts from a certain symphony plus---

JF: (laughs)

BB: --- another thing or excerpts and mix and match those things, um they had a cow. They thought that was breaking the code. So, we had a couple of run ins like that, but they were good people, and they came up with some good programming ideas. And of course, did all the grunt work, which is to make sure we didn't repeat ourselves constantly. Uh, a friend of mine---

JF: Did you have to transcribe the music to tape? Did they have to do that?

BB: ---yeah, we did that. That was one of the things that we did during the buildup. We had to take all of these records and dub them to tape, reel tape so that they would play. That took a long long time. We had to before that we all had to listen to them and time them because we if you---

JF: Oh, your automated system.

BB: ---yes, the automated system, and the had to do all that. It was it was I can't remember how many months it took, but it took a long long time, and except for that abortive little start where everything went ran at once, it was it was pretty well done. We had a chance to interview varying guests. Classical music 12:00fame, composer Morton Gould, Vladimir Oskkenazy, who was regarded as on the great pianist of his day. Uh, Janet Baker, I remember Janet Baker, who was the leading mezzo soprano of her day, a British woman who came in. And the only thing I remember about the lady she had she was wonderful, but she had bad breath, and I'm sitting here like I'm sitting across from you---

JF: (laughs)

BB: ---and I'm trying really hard to be polite and respectful and ask good questions, and all I could think of was what did you have for lunch, lady?

JF: (laughs) Wow. Who were the engineers who put all that together?

BB: I-Larry Baysinger was the head of the engineering crew. Roger Taylor is another name I remember who came on. They're both really really good. And your dealing, of course, with union engineers at that point---

JF: Oh, yeah.

BB: ---and I remember coming from television some of those guys could be not too cooperative if they were in a bad mood. But, Larry and Roger did things that uh---

JF: They were young guys and wanted to do it.

BB: ---they were, yeah, and they wanted the thing to succeed, primarily because not because of how they respected me or didn't, but pretty much cause of Barry, Jr. wanted it. And they all respected the Binghams. I think---

JF: That's great.

BB: ---down to down to every person who worked for them, I think.

JF: Hmm. Very good. So that and you you had to see that transferred from the Courier Journal building over to the building at 6th and Chestnut.

BB: Eventually we moved moved from that 7th floor to a, actually 5th, 6th, and 7th. I remember the 7th floor because that's where the tv studio was, and it was kind of a strange thing getting big props in and out. But we eventually moved up the block, down the block, whatever you want to call it to Chestnut Street. We had to have, of course, everything converted. Uh, we had to move everything electronically, all the music, etcetera. And then shortly after that it was 14:00deemed by management, by under management, despite what Barry wanted, that the classical music format was not going to make any money. There wasn't any possibility of it. And I can remember walking through the halls a lot, and they knew I was program director of FM-WHAS, which was sucking money out of the entire corporate system, which was translated I guess I didn't get a raise this year; that guy's the reason.

JF: (laughs)

BB: So we were we'd get dirty looks, and sometimes some comments. And we would say talk to Barry about it. Well, eventually the people Barry hired to run the radio stations talked him into converting that format to all news. Again, this was Barry being way ahead of the curve. Because now all news stations, talk radio, etcetera, everybody knows what those entities are, but back those days all news stations you wouldn't find them except New York and Chicago. 15:00Unfortunately, we ended up in the same kind of problem we did with the classical music is that because it was so new people didn't believe in it, and they wouldn't buy commercial time in it. So, we ended up after a year of WNNS, Barry finally was convinced that his dream of all classical music and all news, both of which were wonderful ideas, had to be abandoned in the for the sake of profitability. And thus was born WAMZ, which is the leading country music station, leading, leading along with WHAS, the two leading stations still in the market. But, it was still automated. All the news the news station was automated. We just took off the music, and we gave that to University of Louisville, and we gave them Bill Underwood to go along with it. That was part of the deal. And Barry didn't---

JF: Is he still with WUOL or what?

BB: ---I think he's he and I entered retired down in Florida, I think the last 16:00time I heard about them. They were down there. I hope they are both alive and well and enjoying things. But, he went over with uh the musical library. Did WUOL, and WUOL has carried that torch admirably well through difficult times. But, it was Barry's insistence anytime someone listens to listen to good music these days on that station, it's now public station, of course, they have Barry to thank for that, because he insisted that even though it wasn't viable commercially that the community deserved a classical station as well as the library station. So, for a while we had two stations who essentially competed for the same audience, but very few cities in the country of our size had something like that. So, he was determined to do that. So, we shifted that, and as I said, WAMZ to begin with, was all automated. We recorded announcers. It 17:00worked that same way, just we had to change the format, the logs to reflect certain things, and I have the honor, I think, considering how much money we lost, the black mark of having put on the air three separate stations, FM stations---

JF: Oh, sure, yeah.

BB: ---and uh, only one of them made money, but the other two went on the air.

JF: Well, you're still going strong. AMZ is still going strong. I was just trying to take a picture I I think Larry Baysinger told me that uh, Coyote Calhoun, when they hired him to start the country music, at first was still trying to work with the automated system. I just can't imagine Coyote Calhoun and an automated system.

BB: Well, we couldn't uh---

JF: (laughs)

BB: ---we couldn't uh think of Coyote Calhoun in country music---

JF: Well, that's true, that's right.

BB: ---because back in the day he was a rock---

JF: That's right, yeah.

BB: ---but they thought he was he was a lot younger then, so he was and was 18:00anxious to make this work, uh and at that point it became necessary, inevitable, that the country music station have its own program director, so I went into operations for both the FM station and WHAS.

JF: Which involved what?

BB: Oh, wow---

JF: Everything.

BB: ---producing Derby coverage, producing a lot of remote events, um writing copy, um being um in charge of the uh getting the commercials on the air, so to speak. It was a busy job.

JF: Yeah. All the behind the scenes stuff involved---

BB: All the behind the scenes stuff. It was fine with me. It was a you know I had several children at that point. I needed a job, so I kind of acclimated myself to the job, but I think the interesting thing about all that period was 19:00that um if you look what happened to radio and television. Television was being attacked by cable tv, completely unregulated cable tv. And so WHAS television managed to thrive under Barry's leadership and become a very fine television station, which it still is. AM radio, which was way back in the day, before my day, live music had to convert to almost all of it converted to music converted to music stations except WHAS which totally became an all-talk station. And very successful. A lot of the radio stations back in the day, which got big ratings, have disappeared.

JF: ---uh huh, yeah.

BB: And, of course, through the metamorphosis of classical music to news to uh country music, WAMZ became the ratings leader in the FM station. So, under 20:00Barry's leadership everything prospered. And when the break up came, and all the books came out, and the comments came out, it made those of us who really worked directly with Barry absolutely furious, because it gave him credit for nothing. And in fact, he turned what could have been a disaster on the AM side into profitability, also FM. The television station was still doing well. And the newspaper was surviving. And they all sold for prices that people didn't think they would get. All because of his leadership. I can remember one thing that was kind of interesting. Back in the late 80's, I can't put a date on it, we were all sitting around talking about the future of broadcasting, you know broadcasting people do that, and Barry said someday in the near future newspapers are going to really be in trouble because there's going to be come a time when people will get their news on their computer. And remember, this is 21:00the late 80's.

JF: Right.

BB: And we're looking at each other like what's he talking about. Is he smoking something funny or what what, and we had he explained it, but at the time in Louisville, Kentucky, in the late 80's we had no idea what he's talking. We'd thought he'd gone off the deep end. And it turned out, of course, he was ahead of the curve in that as well.

JF: Yeah, yeah.

BB: So when people talk about the Binghams hopefully they remember the family as one who cared about the community and left their imprint in a lot of different ways. But, Barry, Jr. in particular, was way ahead of people in terms of the media in general. And his actions were were all turned out to be, for the most part, good decisions which ended in profitability for for the company. And when I hear today's people talk of anything negative about the Bingham family, I want to say you weren't there. I was there. I saw the people act as people who cared 22:00about the community and were good business people at the same time in a difficult era. So---

JF: Sounds like he was a genius was anticipating things and finding good people who knew how to do things and stayed out of their way.

BB: ---exactly. Exactly, and and there were some mistakes made. When you hire people you think are the best people to do the job, and then you have a hands off attitude toward them, sometimes they screw up. I mean they do. And he hired a couple of people who just really didn't work out for various reasons, which I won't mention names or circumstances, but he took the blame for that, too, and went on and got people to replace them who were better people.

JF: Let's go here.

BB: All right, fire away.

JF: Okay, so we talked about the Bingham family and uh, Barry especially. But, you were you were at WHAS well AM you're operations director.

BB: Correct.

JF: That that means you wear a lot of hats including doing things behind the scenes that make the on- the-air things work well.

BB: That's correct.

JF: Uh, equipment changed a lot during that time, didn't it, from the time you were there?

BB: It is, and luckily we had an engineering department that that really did a good job.

JF: You mentioned Larry Baysinger, who I was involved.

BB: Charlie Strickland, who was our chief engineer for the on the FM side, is a quiet, knowledgeable guy who solved problems that we thought were unsolvable. And those are the names that stick out the most, though a lot of good people worked hard. The uh, I didn't have too much direct contact with sales people. There was always, I was strictly on the programing side. Essentially---

JF: You're responsibility to get the commercials produced (??).

BB: ---getting commercials produced. And we had in the time, I think you were there during a lot of the time, where we had the one of the most creative staffs, people like Gary Burbank started there, John Polk, Jim Ferguson, all the production directors we had were were superb and did---

JF: Because that was the era when they'd gone from where an engineer had to do everything, and the announcer sat in a booth where a guy like a John Polk or Jim Ferguson were going to a studio and ---

BB: ---go into a studio and produce all the stuff---

JF: ---you copied, and they'd put it all together.

BB: ---and it was a particularly under Mike Chrusham and Jim Topmiller, two of the best station managers I worked for. They are, also in addition to making money for the company, which was our main job, won to win awards.

JF: Oh yeah.

BB: And we had a staff, we would take an hour and a half producing one 30 second commercial to get it right. Those were the days where dialog commercial, which now are too prevalent on the air, were coming in, and I would write them, and we'd get a lot of variety of voices, Bill Cody, who's now down in Nashville, uh and John Polk was was terrific uh at producing and very impatient. He would throw things a lot.

JF: (laughs) That was part of his job.

BB: That was part of his job. He would the sales people would come in and wonder 25:00what happened to commercial, and he would order them out brutally.

JF: Do you remember any of the sales people who were around then?

BB: Un, you know one name that sticks in my mind is Jerry Solomon who was a---

JF: Oh yeah, yeah.

BB: ---for sales, in sales. He was our lone sales person for FM-WHAS for a while, just continued. Eventually went to AMZ.

JF: Oh, I didn't realize he had come in that capacity.

BB: Yeah, he had he had done that. Um, you know a lot of names. I'm afraid to mention---

JF: Curt Smith would be one of them.

BB: ---any name, Curt. I'm afraid to mention too many names because I'm going to leave out somebody's going to be mad at me.

JF: (laughs)

BB: And all those years I was there.

JF: The top number, I think, was probably, Bob Scherer was there.

BB: Bob Scherer was there.

JF: He became station manager.

BB: Station manager.

JF: Would you work under him as a station manager.

BB: Yeah, I worked under all three all three guys as operations director, and they were all all really good.

JF: Did you work some with Hugh Barr?

BB: A little bit. He was a station manager when I was program director of of 26:00FM-WHAS ANS, but then I worked a little more directly with his successors. Uh, I think they are all had their willingness to do things that would also would be the right thing to do as well as the money-making thing to do. And sometimes the program directors and sales managers don't drink the same water. I mean they sometimes they disagree with each other. I think they were all liked. I had some wonderful people working for me. Helen Huber and Ann Hubbs. We also created a position had some interesting people work there. We I can tell you this story because it shows some very interesting things. Um, in the '70's there was a lot of pressure nationally on equal opportunity. And one day I looked around the 27:00halls of WHAS, this was early on after being Ops director, and I saw very few African-Americans, like two on the radio side. And I knew if we didn't increase that and get capable people that sooner or later the feds were going to notice that, and it was interesting that not a lot of people were on top of that at that point. Coincidently with that, well actually I went to Mike Crusham, who was manager then, and said we we really need to create a position, a ground level position we can start working African-Americans into the work force because if we don't someone is going to make us do it, and we'll end up having the wrong people. At the same time one good thing about my job as operations director is that I could brown bag my lunch, and Helen and Ann would do a lot of the work, and I would just take off at lunchtime, walk three blocks down to the YMCA. And I had my pattern pretty well set. I'd go into the weight room Monday, 28:00Wednesday, and Friday and play basketball Tuesday and Thursday. I can remember one day I was playing ball, went up for a rebound, and ended up flat on my back. And there grinning at me was a miniature Charles Barkley. He was like 5'9", 200 pounds, black dude, helped me up with a smile on his face. At that point I was having none of that nicety because that wasn't the way you played basketball at the YMCA. It was the old joke, you know, I went to I went to a fight, and a basketball game broke out.

JF: (laughs)

BB: So, next time down on the floor he came down on the floor until I knocked him down. And we did this for a while, and pretty soon he we exchanged names. I told him mine was Brench Boden, worked for WHAS. He said my name is Buster Coleman. I came to find out later that they called him Buster, but his real name was Louis. He became the Reverend Louis Coleman.

JF: Is that right.

BB: And so in the process of conversing through the next year or so, uh, he was working as an assistant director of the Urban League, and I was trying to find some way to get qualified people into WHAS and WMAZ. And we discovered we had 29:00the same goal. So we did create, under Mike Crusham, a position to help Helen and Ann in the continuity department, traffic continuity department, and Buster sent me some applicants. Unfortunately, they were neat, well-spoken, but in terms of written parts-this was a job that requires great specificity of detail-uh I didn't find anybody at that particular time. We did hire somebody uh, created the position; we had a succession of very successful people, couple that Louis sent over. Hazel Miller, may some people may remember her, with---

JF: Oh yeah.

BB: ---Look What We Can Do Louisville, whatever that song was. We had another lady who became assistant to the station manager. So, it turned out to be kind 30:00of an interesting confluence of ideas, but I am happy that now we see uh now we see an equal opportunity in all areas, but particularly in the radio area where competence is valued. And we we did things, I think, the right way---

JF: Yeah.

BB: ---by getting people who were smart and could do their jobs and be promoted. So, that I think was one of the accomplishments that uh, that I look back on my years at WHAS, and I'm real proud of that, to be honest with you.

JF: You did very well.

BB: It uh, it just, uh you know up until the day he died Louis and I still talked every once in a while.

JF: It started by getting knocked down on the basketball floor at the WMCA.

BB: Yeah, and he and you know we would argue. I mean I would argue about education with him. When he went up too far on the (??) like inequity he had his folks picket Papa John's, and I said do you know that has nothing to do with 31:00John Schnatter; it is just you are just way out the limit, you know, and he'd come back and we would I would tell him first thing I did was give him the tip that he needs to go to assignment editors, not news directors. He was trying to get on tv and radio. I said forget the news directors. Find out who the assignment editors are.

JF: So you helped him.

BB: So I helped him, and I'm sure there are people in Louisville who wished I had not given him (both laugh) that tip, and because a Louis could be uh belligerent at times, but I think his heart was always in the right place, and I miss having him around. I'm sure some people (laughs) may have different opinions. But, he was a great guy.

JF: Sure, yes, he was.

BB: And uh, my thanks, everlasting thanks to Ann and Helen, my traffic women, for---

JF: Helen is still there, by the way.

BB: ---is she?

JF: Something about 40 years now, or so.

BB: Wow, uh---

JF: Well, not quite. She came in '77.

BB: ---well, when I walked out the door I think she was still there. Uh, uh, they were really good, consistently in their jobs, and they covered for me nicely, and I appreciate that very much, ladies.

JF: (laughs) You mentioned covering different events. Derby was one that uh that you produced those. WHAS Radio would go out and spend the day out there broadcasting, and of course, not only that, but leading up to it with all the events. You had to had to cover all that kind of stuff, too, didn't you?

BB: Everything back in the day.

JF: Balloon Race.

BB: Balloon Race, yeah---

JF: Steamboat Race.

BB: ---I saw uh I saw the whole Derby Festival week come with dread because we covered everything. I can remember being out on the steamboat, up on the shore. Uh, I can remember covering the very first Thunder over Louisville, and the very first time, and it occurred to me then why are we doing this. It's like covering a ping-pong tournament. You know ping. I mean---

JF: The sound (??).

BB: ---you don't see the pictures. I mean you can talk about the fireworks; you can talk about the air planes, but I thought, I the first time in my life I am producing really boring radio. And you know, maybe people liked that, I'm not 33:00sure, but the rest of the events were good, and we'd have to get out in the field, and do all kinds of stuff, and as you said the Derby was the big deal.

JF: And you were in the booth with whoever the guy was---

BB: In the booth with Wayne Perkey to start with---

JF: ---to call the shots.

BB: ---Paul Rogers, Caywood, talking with Caywood Ledford, then Paul Rogers. And we went on the air around 9:00 in the morning and ended about around 6:30, 7:00. It was a long day, and uh we had pay format that's like 24 pages. I mean the way I did it was format everything. And then we'd I'd put in some time, some space so things ran long we could cover that. I learned that over the after being burned a couple of times, but it was very well, now I think now they just kind of ad lib it, from what I hear. And that's fine. It that works for some people. It didn't work for me. I I really had to have---

JF: Know where everybody was going, know what's happening.

BB: ---Wayne, bless his heart, was a wonderful guy to work with. I love him 34:00dearly; he's a great friend. Sometimes he would run a little long.

JF: (laughs)

BB: And we'd have get somewhat warfare in the booth because I had to get certain people --we had the winning horse-or something like that or the jockey, and we had to get to that. But, I think it was the longest, live, radio, sporting event broadcast ever, I believe. People could make a case for the Indy 500, maybe, but, we started with the very first race and ended with the very last race.

JF: And even the one after the Derby.

BB: Even the one after the Derby. All the interviews, the stars. I remember Milton Metz and a few other people go out in the Grand Stand and get the upper crust. And we had people in the infield which was difficult at times, given the behavior---

JF: (laughs)

BB: ---I'd started out covering the Derby in television. CBS had the rights, and they hired me to supervise a bunch of guys from WHAS to do little cards and 35:00stuff. On the roof. I was on the roof the whole time. I can remember one time when when a guy named Frank Chirkinian, who is famous in broadcasting. He just died. He had a habit of calling people names at times, and these were guys running camera, who were really tough, union guys from New York. And you really shouldn't mess with people like that.

JF: (laughs)

BB: And he was calling then calling them some names for doing something wrong, and they talked to the union steward, and somewhere around the fifth sixth race they locked the cameras down.

JF: Oh.

BB: So we had no rehearsal for the Derby until someone found an executive who was sober, which was kind of difficult at that, and talk nicely to the union steward who had opened up the cameras in time to do the Derby, the eighth race.

JF: Wow.

BB: We didn't do the seventh race. There was no rehearsal for that particular year's Derby. So, I learned the hard way about how tough it can be to spend an entire day covering the Kentucky Derby. So, really radio was, in many ways, a little easier.

JF: (laughs)

BB: Mainly because I was in charge of it. That was it; that helped.

JF: Wow.

BB: Those were hard days, but good days because we had a lot of good people.

JF: Yeah. That was one of the keys to HAS, I think, wasn't it?

BB: Oh you had, the people particularly up to the time the until the time the Binghams sold it. Not that the people now aren't good people, but I can remember so many people, again, I can't mention all their names because I forget somebody, but on air people, the technical people, the news people; they were all all great, and it was live. It was live. I can remember one story from the radio days was, I won't mention the guy who did the broadcast, but evidently 37:00early in the morning there was a traffic accident where some poor soul stepped off the curb too early, and a Tarc bus ran him down. And I believe the opening line was, "Derby day started badly for John Smith, ---

JF: (laughs)

BB: ---who stepped off and was run over and killed by a Tarc Bus." I think that's maybe not best way (both laugh) to start our Derby coverage with. (both laugh) We were all saying, "What did he say?"

JF: Oh, wow.

BB: But, yet again, live radio, live tv, those are the things in my memory stick with me the most. The goofs, the screw ups and on the positive side, all the great people I had a chance to work with, from the top, Barry Bingham, Jr. down to every every person in the office. There was a tremendous pride at WHAS, both with the FM and the AM side, in the product. I mean everyone wanted to make 38:00money. I mean we all knew; we'd been in business for a while; we knew that was the bottom line was the bottom line, but there was a tremendous pride in the product we put on the air. On everyone's part, and if you weren't that mind set you didn't last too long there.

JF: Interesting.BB: And it wasn't because someone be upset and fire you; they'd end up leaving because there was just uh feeling that uh we we had some pride in the product, WHAS. Certainly, those call letters had a ring to it back in history, and certainly the Bingham family, we felt, deserved the kind of product that reflected their investment in it had in the community at large. So, I think that's that I says I don't want to mention too many more names because I know I am going to leave out---

JF: I do want to know---

BB: ---hundreds of people that I've worked with over the years.

JF: ---one would be, especially, Caywood Ledford, you worked with Caywood some?

BB: Caywood, yeah, (laughs) Caywood was really a knowledgeable guy and both uh, we'd meet sometimes I had to guy was missing I had to set up a basketball game or something like that. But, my most interaction with Caywood, outside of television, was in my years in tv was with at the Derby.

JF: At the Derby, uh hum.

BB: And I think one of the real hard parts of my job at that point was to see that Caywood, getting on in age, his eyes just couldn't pick up the colors anymore, and couldn't pick out the horses coming out the gate, and he had to give that up. And he loved it. He loved every part of about the track. We would meet early in the morning, and we would go do some stuff. He was already with his program. He was the ultimate professional. Of course, everyone said that about Caywood. I'm not adding anything that's new. He, uh, but Paul Rogers came along, and picked right up where Caywood left off and did a his own good job 40:00with the Derby broadcast. So, there are a lot of people from outside the community and inside the community that I had a chance to work with. And most of those memories are very very good.

JF: I talked to Charlie Strickland recently for one of these interviews, and Charlie gave you some real credit. He said uh, "Brench Boden was correct. He told me once that our competitors are not other radio stations. It's television." Do you remember telling him that and what that meant?

BB: I remember that. And that was something that we understood on the operation side. I'm not sure the sales department did. The sales people were still out trying to outsell the other radio stations, but because I'd worked in tv, and knew a little bit about it, I could see, especially as cable came along, I could see the rates dropping because of competition. And so you've got a station like 41:00WHAS, which commands big ratings, and therefore, naturally charges more for their spots, going up, and some of the weaker television kept putting that out to the folks that you really need to watch over your shoulder because the tv people are more aggressive now. They will give you free production for a tv spot, and you know pictures are pictures. And so they uh you had to be had to be alert about where your competition was in a lot of different areas, but Charlie was right, and he uh he he knew he's a good example of those people who were in the background, but you knew a heck of a lot about the industry from not just an engineering standpoint, but from a common sense standpoint. So he was right on the money.

JF: Well, and of course, even in programming that's true because now everything that was on radio that HAS did, live broadcast from places, uh traffic reports, weather on the spot, all television stations, they didn't do that at that time. They didn't have the capability of doing those kinds of things, and now they are all doing it.

BB: They learned, too. They've learned local business; local doings have a big place in in tv as well as radio. And as you said the technology as such before it was difficult, but now you can just, you know, get a shoulder camera and go out in the field and put a mike on somebody, and you can do they've reacted a lot better than they have. Very dumb people in media today---

JF: Can't afford to be.

BB: ---can't afford to be because there is always someone and now the big thing is trying to get the younger market you have other devices stuck in their ear all the time, and radio is trying to reinvent itself. I could remember when the 43:00campaign came less is more, to where we were going to convert radio our radio stations were going to concentrate on more thirty second commercials as well as sixty, and I'm thinking I've heard this before, because some things never change. They recycle themselves. Everyone the younger people thought that was something new. It really wasn't new. You're always trying to tighten up what you're doing because back in the days it was just you have a second or two of dead air didn't bother anybody, but as as media changed, it's hard it's hard to find silence. I mean even between elements elements of programming so yeah, everyone is getting a little a little smarter, and they have to be because there are so many sources of information now that---

JF: Yeah, it's very competitive.

BB: ---yeah, you have to hustle.

JF: So you were there from 1959 until there was a gap. You left and came back for a while. When when did you leave.

BB: Uh, I got a really good offer, I think it was, oh wow, '80's, '90's, 44:00something, '80's, '90's from Levi's Lumber and Building from Phillip and Steve Levi, who still remain my favorite, two of my favorite people.

JF: Yeah. Good people.

BB: Uh, and unfortunately, like everyone in local business had trouble with the competition, and there is no more Levy's anymore, which is not a good thing. So, I went there marketing director for a while. Got which enabled me to get back into tv because tv they weren't doing television at the time, and they needed to. And I got so interested in tv that I thought well, maybe I could everything, so I went. My wife suggested this. "Why don't you go to Barry, Jr., and see if he'd be interested in backing an advertising agency." So, I did, and he was, and we had some good years, and then recessions came along, not so good years. And 45:00then so we just figured that that time is passed, and I took the agency in-house literally in my house, and then I got a call from Bill Gentry, who was station manager of WHAS the whole Clear Channel group, and said we sat down and decided that I could lower my insurance costs and help him by just by copywriting and occasionally dropping some voices on tape, comic voices, something like that.

JF: What year was this? Do you remember what year?

BB: Well, it would have been 12 years from last year so it would have been about 2000, year 2000. And that worked out quite fine, again. A lot of people, really good people helped.

JF: Of course in this time it had transitioned from the Binghams to Clear-were you there during that transition?

BB: I was there, and it was one year of the transition, before I left to go to 46:00Levy's and then from there to an advertising agency.

JF: And then you came back this time (??).

BB: When I came back there were a couple of people are still there. Um, but things had changed, and I'm not saying this in a negative way. It's just that I think the pressure today on them as well as everyone in the media and agencies, is so intense because there is so much completion. The media continues to change, and many ways the more in changes, the more it stays the same. You've got you still have to do the basics right. And there was just a tension there that wasn't there back in the days. I'm not really talking about the days when the Binghams owned it because there was a feeling that all the Binghams had a lot of money they don't need to make more, but that wasn't the case. That that would never the way the Binghams ran a company. They wanted to be profitable like everybody else. It was just I think that the and the economy that just made things a little more tense within the offices. It wasn't- there were nice 47:00people, and I enjoyed my time there the second time around; it just wasn't as much fun.

JF: Different building, too, of course.

BB: Different building. But, still it just wasn't as much fun. I kept thinking about the days when we would go into a production studio and create a commercial that would win a gold Louis, for example, which we we won so many silver Louis's we'd end up tossing them in the corner.

JF: This was an award put out by the Louisville Advertising (??).

BB: The thing of it second place was not acceptable. I think they probably stick them in a corner somewhere (laughs) somewhere in that building, but I think of the most times when we'd really want to do absolutely the best, and now there's no time to do that. They are so anxious to they have to be they produce so many commercials to increase profitability that, and I admire people who can do that, and be happy with that. I'm not really one of those people. I'm really not. 48:00Though, I was never satisfied again, the people who were working in the production department. Dave Lee, who is apparently director of production of the stations, is a terrific guy, and and he is not satisfied until everything is is is good. But, I think the things just change, and change is inevitable, and maybe it will change back after the economy improves. I don't know.

JF: Well, good. Uh, now you mentioned early on your connection with Dave Jones and the Motet Singers. You've been very involved in the musical community in Louisville. All those years, right?

BB: Well, that's another whole whole story. My degree was in music history and English, but I had been singing since I was a little kid, and I knew enough about my talent so that I wasn't going to make any money at it. So, I directed 49:00choirs and choruses for about 25 years. Still sing some; still compose some. I uh---

JF: What groups did you sing with and for and direct?

BB: Uh, Kentucky Opera, Louisville Orchestra. A whole bunch of things like that. I could remember one time this is kind of illustrative. I was directing a choir at St. Paul Episcopal Church out on Lowe Road. This is nice, good people, middle class church. I got a call from George Mester. He and I had become friends over the and we'd already done one project together. He said---

JF: He's director of Louisville Orchestra.

BB: ---he's director of the Louisville Orchestra at the time. His first time around.

And said, "I heard your junior choir is really good."

I said, "Yeah, it really is pretty good." I had about 22-23 kids.

He said, "I wonder if you could I want you to your kids to sing with the Louisville Orchestra."

And I said, "Okay". It is the last minute of a Berlioz piece. I can't think which one it was, (??) The Damnation of Faust or something like that. Not important. It's five minutes. It's at the end of the piece, and it is in four 50:00parts, and it's in French. And I'm thinking---

JF: (laughs)

BB: ---well, to be honest, ours was the only choir that could do that because we had some wonderful parents who'd bring their kids to rehearsal. So we ended up doing it.

JF: Wow.

BB: We ended up doing it. Got a better review than the adult choir. Many of these kids, age like 8-14, from a nice, middle class church. Didn't have a lot of private music lessons. They didn't go to Youth Performing Arts, something like that. Standing up on stage with the Louisville Orchestra, singing in four parts, which is tough for kids to do---

JF: Sure.

BB: ---in French, and doing a fabulous job. I think that is one of the most proud moments---

JF: I bet.

BB: ---I've ever had. As proud of those kids, really proud of the parents who put up with me and my rehearsal technics, uh, to do that. But, yeah, I was able to because I didn't depend on that for my main income; I was able to conduct and sing and make some money in various parts of the music spectrum in Louisville. 51:00Had a good time with those folks, too. Fund for the Arts wonderful organization. Still is. So, and of course, the Binghams encouraged that. They encourage you to give back to the community so I didn't have a little any problem taking off a little bit here or there in order to do something like that; so, it was again, it all comes back to having that basic framework owned by the Binghams, and their devotion to the city. And of course, when it comes to music they were how many of millions of dollars did they give to support the arts in Louisville. And one the great tragedies of our age was when the family was forced to break up and divest, and the arts has recovered from it, sort of, but the idea of not having the Binghams not there is to support all these things was difficult.

JF: Yeah.

BB: Very difficult.

JF: Very true.

BB: Well, Brench, this has been delightful. Anything else you want to add about 52:00memories of WHAS?

BB: Oh, we could sit here for another couple of hours. I'm sure I could come up with a with some more things. Some which I couldn't say on the air. But, again, it---

JF: Sounds like it was a good experience.

BB: ---it was a good experience, and of course, we always look back on our lives with a little it's always a little rosier than it actually was. I'm sure my career with WHAS had those moments, too. But, I guess the two things that I will carry from it were the great people that I worked with, and my respect for the Binghams. If there's one I think I told you when we first talked about this, if there's one thing that I wanted to get on record was the stuff, some of the stuff, most of the stuff written about Barry, Jr. and the Binghams post break up was just plain, and here's where you would put in the bleep because they didn't 53:00weren't there. Maybe some were on the periphery, but they weren't there. They didn't work with Barry on a daily basis. They didn't see the family, meet with them as I was fortunate enough to do. Their the breakup of the Bingham family was an immeasurable loss to the city of Louisville, and I was lucky to be a part of what that family gave to Louisville. My part in it was small but was important to me.JF: And it's still going on, really with DOL, with the radio station.

BB: It still lives on.

BB: Yeah, that's great. Well, thank Brench, appreciate it.

BB: Your welcome, Jack.

JF: Good luck in the future.

BB: Thank you.