ROCK JOCKS: THE FM REVOLUTION (TV)
Summary
This documentary hosted by Howard Hesseman follows the onset of "progressive" FM rock radio in the 1960s and its relationship to the counterculture movement. Featured are interviews by such pioneering FM disc jockeys as "Cousin Brucie" Bruce Morrow, Ben Fong-Torres, Raechel Donahue, Vin Scelsa, Pete Fornatale, Scott Muni, Richard Neer, Rick Dees, Scott Shannon, Carol Miller, David Spera, Shadoe Stevens, and Pat St. John. Morrow opens by detailing the rise of FM radio in the 1960s. Fornatale notes that three factors were responsible for the early success of FM radio: Tom Donahue in San Francisco, WOR-FM in New York, and college radio. Scott Muni adds that FM radio was the first to play the "underground" music of the burgeoning counterculture revolution. Next, David Spera discusses the importance of early "protest music" -- Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead -- as well as the drug awareness often mentioned on the air, in being responsible for the alternative success that FM radio began to garner. Shadoe Stevens discusses the excitement when women deejays, most notably Alison Steele, got involved in the medium. Hesseman relates that by the time the television show "WKRP in Cincinnati" went on the air, the progressive radio movement was almost finished. Rick Dees believes the fall of progressive radio can be linked to the rise of disco -- something he is partly responsible for, with his hit single "Disco Duck." Other deejays mention that the deaths at the Rolling Stones concert in Altamont and the assassination of John Lennon, radically changed rock music on the FM dial. Hesseman claims that radio could never be edgy again after the homogenizing of radio begun by MTV and the corporations in the early 1980s. The documentary ends with Dees ranting about his dislike for "shock jocks" such as Don Imus and Howard Stern, how the spontaneity of radio was replaced by the science of predictability, and how there may never be another radio rebel again.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: November 9, 2002 Saturday 7:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:56:05
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:72434
- GENRE: Arts documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Disc jockeys (deejays); Radio - History; Radio broadcasting and programs; Rock music; She Made It Collection (Raechel Donahue)
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV, 2002
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Carolyn Travis … Executive Producer, Created by, Writer
- Raechel Donahue … Producer
- Chris Fox … Director
- Dan Peake … Music by
- Howard Hesseman … Host
- Rick Dees
- Raechel Donahue
- Tom Donahue
- Bob Dylan
- Ben Fong-Torres
- Peter Fornatale
- Grateful Dead, The
- Don Imus
- Jefferson Airplane
- John Lennon
- Richard Neer
- Carol Miller
- Bruce Morrow
- Scott Muni
- Rolling Stones, The
- Vincent Scelsa
- Scott Shannon
- David Spera
- Alison Steele
- Howard Stern
- Shadoe Stevens
- St. John, Pat