DJs narrated the soundtrack of South Florida lives
When the Beatles conquered America in 1964, Miami Beach was where the group made history.
And you could say the Beatles got by with a little help from their friends.
Radio DJs.
The recent death of Sonny Fox has us reflecting on the voices of music DJs we loved on South Florida airwaves for generations.
How Rick Shaw bridged Liverpool and Miami
Take the late Rick Shaw.
He was the 25-year-old DJ on Miami’s hippest station, WQAM-560, and he is credited with spinning the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on South Florida’s airwaves before anyone else locally.
“’I Want to Hold Your Hand’ was an amazing thing,” Shaw told the Miami Herald in 2014 on the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ Feb. 16, 1964, performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” That landmark appearance was broadcast live from the Deauville Hotel on Miami Beach’s Collins Avenue.
The Beatles, who broke up 50 years ago in 1970, had performed on the Sullivan show in New York a week earlier on Feb. 9, 1964. But South Florida — in part because of music DJs like Rick Shaw — is a bright spot in Beatles’ history.
Beatlemania had yet to reach American shores when Shaw played “I Want to Hold Your Hand” on WQAM upon its release around Christmas 1963.
“I put it on, played it first in South Florida, and nobody had heard of the Beatles,” Shaw said about playing that Beatles’ 45 rpm single. “About 30 seconds into the record, the phones exploded. Something was going on here, something really unusual and different. Those things become road marks and the soundtrack of your life.”
In September 1964, the Beatles performed at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville and refused to go on stage if the concert were racially segregated.
“We never play to segregated audiences and we aren’t going to start now. I’d sooner lose out appearance money,” John Lennon said at the time, reported Beatle Bible, an online fan site.
Shaw was there to gauge the reaction he helped spark in South Florida earlier that year.
“I have never in my life heard the screams, shouts and other assorted noises displayed when George, Paul, Ringo and John took the stage in Jacksonville,” Shaw wrote in a column that the Herald ran in September 1964.
DJ Joe Johnson is another voice beloved by South Florida radio listeners for playing the soundtrack of so many lives. He’s now a morning host on WLRN 91.3 FM and host and creator of the syndicated Beatle Brunch program on Compass Media Networks. In 2014, he wasDJ on an oldies station, the former Majic 102.7 FM, when he reminisced about the Beatles on the Beach.
The Beatles “spent more time in South Florida than any other city; they were here eight days,” Johnson told the Herald in 2014 on the 50th anniversary of the famous performance. “In Miami they really interacted with our local celebs. Cassius Clay. They loved the local flavor. I think for Florida to claim the Beatles as part of their own is really important.”
‘Sonny in the Morning’ and memories of Florida DJs
By the time Sonny Fox made it to South Florida airwaves in the 1970s, the Beatles were splintered into solo acts.
But the music went on.
“Sonny in the morning” was a familiar phrase for decades to South Florida radio listeners. Many grew up hearing Fox’s familiar drawl on rock radio WSHE 103.5 FM, contemporary pop station WHYI Y-100 100.7 FM, and KISS Country WKIS 99.9 FM.
According to his longtime radio partner Ron Hersey, who was paired with Fox on those stations, the DJ even inspired a 1978-1982 CBS sitcom about the pop music radio industry.
“Sonny was at Z-93 in Atlanta at the same time Hugh Wilson was writing ‘WKRP in Cincinnati.’ His ‘look’ was the inspiration for hiring Howard Hessman to play Johnny Fever,” Hersey said. “Sonny also used wind chimes on the air there, which later became a part of Venus Flytrap’s show.”
From Tanner in the Morning to Mark in the Dark
Sure, John, Paul, George and Ringo’s voices on Beatles hits, and then their solo hits, kept us tapping our toes on WQAM, WFUN, WGBS, Y-100 and others from the 1960s to oldies satellite programs now.
But we’re also talking about the voices that introduced the music, kept us laughing in the morning, answering our phones with the slogan, “I’m listening to the new sound of Y-100!” in hopes of winning cash prizes, or slapping “SHE’s Only Rock and Roll” bumper stickers on our cars.
And those voices would have to include DJs like Shaw. “Crazy” Cramer Haas. Bill “Tanner in the Morning.” Don “Cox on the Radio” Cox. Jo “The Rock and Roll Madame” Maeder.
Also, 97 GTR’s Patty Murray. Kimba Schnickelfritz, who only needed one of those names to rock our world on Zeta 4. Jade Alexander. DJ Irie and “James T.” Thomas on WEDR. Mindy Lang. Glenn Richards.
How about Greg Budell on Love 94 and his face on bus benches in the 1980s? Y-100 in the 1970s with Kid Curry, Earl “The Pearl” Lewis, Mark “In the Dark” Shands and Quincy McCoy.
The disc jockeys’ reach, which extended to personal appearances and TV spots, endures.
“I grew up with Rick Shaw. His morning TV show was always on every day in my home,” said Rich Ulloa on a Facebook post.
Nearly 40 years ago, Ulloa founded Yesterday & Today, a chain of three record stores in Miami-Dade and one in Gainesville that had display cases devoted to Beatles albums, singles and memorabilia. A Bird Road location in West Miami-Dade is still open in a strip mall at 9274 SW 40th St.
In 1991, Ulloa also founded the Y&T label and management group that introduced country music group, The Mavericks, to the world nearly 30 years ago.
Earlier last month, The Mavericks released a well-received Spanish-language album, “En Español,” which features some songs listeners almost assuredly heard on Spanish-language radio back in the day, like Julio Iglesias’‘”Me olvidé de vivir.”
When the Coppertone dog bit the DJ
And if you were around and listening to contemporary hits radio in 1980s Miami, who can forget this bit of DJ lore?
The late Don Cox, of “Cox on the Radio” fame, was broadcasting his WPOW-FM (Power 96) show from atop the Coppertone billboard at the Golden Glades Interchange in 1986 when he got too close to the mechanical dog and got a knock to the noggin.
“Remember those Road Runner cartoons where he runs off the end of the cliff and goes, ‘Beep, beep’ and runs back on the cliff again? That’s what I did,” Cox told the Miami Herald at the time.
After seven stitches at Parkway Regional Medical Center, he was back on the billboard, bullhorn in hand.
According to the Herald, the police report read: “After 37 years, the 12-foot cocker spaniel let go of the 25-foot-high girl’s bikini bottom and bit victim on top of his head.”
When Cox got conked, the former Power 96 was playing a song by the Jets, called “Crush on You.”
“The only thing better,” the station’s program director Bill Tanner said at the time, “would have been [Peter Gabriel’s] ‘Sledgehammer.’”
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
