My Co-worker & Group W Radio Colleague Rush Limbaugh Has Passed at 70
Stand By:
I was looking for YouTube videos that should include my commercial productions that during the mid-eighties ran--not only--on the Adult Contemporary Sister Station, KAER 92.5 FM Sacramento--but on Limbaugh's #1 local show airing on KFBK NewsRadio 1530, Sacramento from 9AM-Noon.
More importantly, legally, I am now able to air or post excerpts from Rush's fill-in for KAER Morning hosts, Robins & Cowan show, recorded in 1987. Using a three-head cassette-deck deploying metal tape, it should upload in pretty good shape. Mater of fact, I could bring down all of the airchecks I recorded in 1970's Sacramento of Bay Area Jocks at 610 KFRC.
For the most part, Limbaugh made fun of KAER 92.5 FM, taking swipes at the station's format, characterizing our listeners as "Drug Addicted Music Radio Listeners," going-on to say they were out-of-touch and having no idea of what is going-on around them, politically.
...perhaps that last one, an already factual observation, yet the syndicated show which ran for thirty years, nationally, and the controversy over the years about things Rush said and characterizations made--would get many on air suspended or fired in today's cancel culture!
Classic Limbaugh on-air at the launching-pad of his historic take-off--just prior to syndication--on KFBK Sacramento, News Radio, 1530
However, my recording of Limbaugh's mistake-ridden fill-in show on KAER 92.5, after finishing my Midnight to 5:30 AM show, demonstrates that he struggled with a then Top 30 Market Adult Contemporary [AC] music format, although there were bright spots.
For instance, Rush calling-out Carly Simon on having "...a face just like that of a horse and married to James Taylor...who belongs in a mental institution!" Moments later, Limbaugh is unable to connect with Traffic Reporter, Commander Bill, and tries blaming his Producer, Kitty O'Neil, for the resulting dead-air.
Usually, his bombastic delivery or show heard locally in The Sac was always #1 (12+ Arbitron) in the ratings for the 9 AM-Noon day-part. Daily, he reminded his listeners of what he loved to characterize as excellence-in-broadcasting, a year or so prior to his moving onto New York and becoming syndicated; yet, the fill-in those two morning's on KAER while claiming, "...zero mistakes. . . flawlessly executing the programing format...this takes 'zero talent'" was followed by more dead-air--only to be reinforced by mistake, after technical board-work, mistake.
It is a rare recording and it resides with some 100 other cassettes of mostly 610 KFRC and local, 1240 KROY & 1470 KNDE, and the later--1470 KXOA--at the end of Top 40 Music AM dominance where I worked from 1979-1980.
No matc KROY and 1470 KNDE inside a dark closet in an air conditioned house of a cousin in Sacramento County; eventually, I will digitize the recording and post it on YouTube, for instance.
Although finding myself very much at odds politically, 'El Rush-bo," Limbaugh is the most historic figure in the radio broadcasting medium, period.
Once again as when I play political media analyst/scholar, this does make me a conservative, Trump supporter or Rush Limbaugh sycophant.
I was just lucky to be there, locally, when Rush was a huge deal, in The Sac.
Group W' [Historically, Westinghouse Broadcasting is considered the Inventor of commercial radio after launching KDKA Pittsburgh in November of 1920] purchased KFBK 1530 AM/KAER 92.5 FM for 25 Million from the soon to be defunct, McClatchy Broadcasting in 1987. At the time, I was on-air holding down the Monday-Thursday Overnight shift with a chance to really shine on what I referred-to as "The Saturday Morning Drive" shift from 6-11 AM.
Driving around Sac--listening to my commercials on both KFBK & KAER was a real shot-in-the-pre-covid-arm! All the while laughing at mid 1980's billboards, popping-up all over town, promoting Limbaugh's local show--many depicting tomatoes & eggs having been thrown at the advertisement!
Regrettably, I never took a picture with him, had no clue he would become a kingmaker in presidential elections, grace the cover of once relevant Time magazine--twice--and become the most important figure in not only talk radio, but the broadcasting industry, historically.
Oftentimes, I think of him in regards to if I only could have afforded, financially, to stay with Group W' [making about the same take-home pay and already well established as an apartment maintenance supervisor, the tax-free two-bedroom apartment provided as part of my compensation seemed a no-brainer at the time.]
...or as my community college counselors stated after dusting-myself-off from homelessness, "Life Happens." That said, I always wanted to be the Libertarian counter-weight to his rigid conservatism--or replace Michael Savage as a hipper--more relevant west coast native promoting a voice of reason.
That Never Happened Either
If I work hard for it and come-out as a stalwart of common sense and critical thinking phenom, my greatest chapter in The City of my radio market dreams may still come to to pass.
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