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10 Questions with ... Bob Kingsley
November 6, 2016
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BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/CountryTop40
Twitter: www.Twitter.com/BobKingsleyCT40Bob Kingsley is one of the most highly decorated on-air personalities in the Country format, having been twice named CMA's National Broadcast Personality Of The Year and earning Billboard's Network/Syndicated Program Of The Year 16 times. The Country Radio Broadcasters have voted Bob as National Air Personality Of The Year three times and named him their President's Award winner in 2012, while the ACMs awarded him with the National Broadcast Personality Of The Year award in 2007. Bob was inducted into the Country Radio Hall Of Fame in 1998 and this year takes his rightful place in the National Radio Hall Of Fame after the industry rallied around him via the #CountMeInBob campaign. Bob is loved for his enthusiasm and passion for the format and its artists in addition to his skilled delivery of the weekly countdown and his many yearly radio specials. His warm, welcoming personality and booming voice have earned him innumerable friends in the business, which led to Bob receiving the Living Legend Award on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in February 2014. After nearly three decades of hosting the "American Country Countdown," Bob launched his "Country Top 40" in 2006. An advocate for artists, songwriters, and music, Bob is equally passionate about our country and our veterans and works with many charitable causes to give back to the global community. Bob took time out of his busy schedule to speak with All Access in the weeks leading up to his official induction in the National Radio Hall Of Fame, and we took the chance to discuss his award-winning career and what makes him such a beloved personality both on-air and in person.
1. Bob, let's begin at the end, shall we? Before we take a deep dive in to your career and how you ended up here, can you tell me what it means to you to have been inducted into the National Radio Hall Of Fame?
Pretty amazing. I find myself still shaking my head that - really? Really?! Some of the people I grew up listening to as a kid are in there, and all for good reason. And I'm going to be hanging in the Hall with them? C'mon! It has sunk in, but it still gives me pause. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable! The times that it has come up before, I thought it was neat - and it didn't happen then, but that's alright! I figured maybe someday. But I didn't dwell on it. And now...here it is! Good grief. I've got to tell you, I'm just trying to stay above it. I'm trying not to fall apart, because I get really emotional about things. I can't help it. I try to remember to pinch myself. I had to give a speech in front of all these veterans a couple of years ago in New York for the Wounded Warrior Project, and it was overwhelming. I had a little pin - a tack - and when I could feel the emotion start to come on, I had the pin in my pocket, and I'd just push it through to my leg! That stopped the tears immediately! It was a reminder to stay in the moment. That's what this is about - that's what the Countdown is all about, and it's what real, professional radio people do. They're in the moment and loving the music; and you can tell it. As opposed to - I don't wear headphones, I just wear a little earpiece to go in and out of the music - but I still remember when I was the PD at KGBS in L.A. around 1967, and I walked in to see the afternoon guy. He had his earphones turned up so loud! And what he was doing was, he was listening to himself. And then I went out and listened to him on the radio, and I could tell the difference. He was talking to not me or you, but to himself to hear himself. That is so uncool! I went and took his headphones away from him, and about a week later, he quit. But you've got to talk to me! I just think it's about live radio being in the moment, don't you think?
2. Absolutely! And you mentioned that you had been nominated for induction previously, but it had not come to pass before. The process by which you came to be inducted took a bit of a strange path this year. It seems the Country radio and records family had quite enough of you being overlooked -- we saw a rallying happen that brought together radio, records, and artists in a campaign to make certain this was your year. How did you feel about the #CountMeInBob campaign? Were you aware of the support you had from the industry as the campaign picked up speed?
I was not exactly aware of it at first, but then it became pretty hard to not notice! With RJ - God love him - I don't know. Maybe there was an urgency to do it because it was like, "Well, let's get him in while he's still alive!" I really don't know why, but it was just amazing to me. Seeing it in the trades, and then I would talk to people - it was overwhelming, actually. The fact that that many people would get behind it - just overwhelming. I remember the first column I saw about it was a big thing on Facebook from [CBS Radio Country KFRG/Riverside, CA morning co-host] Heather Froglear. She did this whole thing on Facebook, and then a whole lot of people responded to that. It was just - wow. That was pretty close to unreal. It was a pretty cool moment, to say the least!
3. Now that you're in -- let's go back to the beginning. How did you get here -- and most importantly, where did it start? What first piqued your interest in radio?
The radio was my best friend when I was young. I kind of grew right along with radio. I can still remember the first countdown I ever heard was on KFWB [Los Angeles], and I remember how crazy I was for a particular record that I loved that only got to number two. And I kept thinking, "Wait, what?!" It was Al Jarvis and Joe Yocum, and they did the Saturday Morning Countdown, and I was probably age 14, 15, or 16 - somewhere right in there. I just couldn't stand it. On Saturday mornings, I was working as a box boy in a market, and I would go out - in those days, people left their cars open - and I would go out after I had taken someone out to the car with their groceries, and I would find a car with nobody in it, and I'd get in and turn the radio on. Because they would run that countdown from nine until noon on Saturday. And around 11:30a or a quarter til noon, I just had to hear the top ten, man! I had to! And that's pretty much - but being on the radio, that never occurred to me. It just genuinely never occurred to me, and I never gave it a thought. I was going to be a race car driver. For real. And then, when I joined the Air Force - I had just, just, JUST turned 18 - they put me in the motor pool. I was thrilled! I got to drive these trucks, and an M-7 tank, and I could get to the flat line faster than anybody else. It was great! Then, one day, the Staff Sergeant said in the mess hall, "Kingsley, I heard the Armed Forces Radio is looking for an announcer. You ought to go over and try that out!" And my only thought was, "Well. Why not?" I jumped in the Colonel's jeep, I raced over there, and I walked right in. I sat down, and they gave me some copy to read - which I absolutely slaughtered! I mean, it was - I just knew I'd never hear from those people again! But I left, and a couple of days later, the Barrick Sergeant said, "Kingsley, you've been transferred to Special Services." That was Armed Forces Radio. At that age, you're up for anything! And this was in Keflavik, Iceland. So I went in, and they put me on middays. I will never forget - I wish I could remember who it was - but the Captain walked in after about a half hour and said, "Bob, this is not working out too well." I was just awful. Absolutely awful. I didn't know what to say or what to do - awful! So, they decided to put me on Armed Forces Television Service where every half hour - he said, "Now, I know you can handle this!" - I would flip the microphone every half hour and say, "This is Armed Forces Radio and Television Services, Keflavik, Iceland." I said, "Well, I can do that." But in the meantime, I was going back over to the radio production studio at midnight every night and practicing. Then I really started listening to a couple of guys there who were really great - I'd listen to ways they would introduce records and so on, and of course I started trying to emulate them. And, about three months later, I said, "I think I'm ready to try it again, Captain!" Reluctantly, he said, "Well, okay." And I went on midnights, which was perfect for me.
4. Where did you land your first on-air opportunity when you came out of the service? Can you share some insight in to what it was like to be a young Bob Kingsley learning the ropes? Who were your mentors or on-air idols?
After I was there a year or so, I realized I was getting closer to rotating back to the states. I thought, well, what am I going to do? But I came back, and I knew exactly what I was going to do! I was going to go find a radio station somewhere and be a disc jockey. I walked in to a little station - the very first one after I had been back for a while. After I came back, I did a lot of odd jobs. I was a parcel deliverer for a couple of automobile places in Van Nuys, and was just trying to figure things out. But I figured I would take my demo tape and go spend some time on the road. So I went to several different places in the seven western states - but pretty much through California in the beginning - and then, I went to Palmdale, California. I took them my demo tape, and they said, "Well, let's try it!" They started me in mornings, which was a mistake, because I'm really not very good at anything early in the morning! As I recall, as a matter of fact, there were several times he would say, "You've got to be here by 5a so you can turn the transmitters on and do the lights!" And I was late many number of times, unfortunately - or, fortunately, now that I really look at it! About the third or fourth time that I was late, he came in and said, "This really isn't working out too well." So, once again, I was on the road. I believe I had a 1954 Chevrolet, and I thought, "Well, I've always wanted to go to Vegas!" And I did. It was one of those things where they were looking for somebody to handle 6p to midnight. And the guy told me, "Now, I don't want you to say hardly anything. You just give the time and temperature, and you play the records." Now, that was perfect for me! There were some great jocks on that radio station - one guy in particular, Hal Morelli, who was just superb in the morning. I started listening to him. And you know, if you listen long enough and you absorb - because you want to absorb what's going on - it will kind of start to come to you. That lasted about a year, and then I was back on the road again. From there, I found that in those days, you were mostly working out of the transmitter, and you needed a license. All the stations I went to would ask me that - and I'd have to say, "Well, no. I have a three-class." So then I ended up down in San Diego, and a guy I respected a great deal, a fellow named Don Howard, was a jock down there. He said, "You should go down here and meet these people in Chula Vista. They're getting ready to start a station in Tijuana." And I did, and I got the job. Now that was a real experience! We were going back and forth across the border each day, and that was not a fun experience. But the station was neat! There were a couple of incidents - but anyway, I realized that this was not necessarily a good thing, and one could get in trouble and end up in a Tijuana jail, which was not smart. We didn't have work permits! The morning guy got popped, and I went to see him; it was unbelievable going in to that jail. That's when I said, "I've got to get moving." So then I said to myself, "Bob, if you want to do anything with this, you need to get yourself a first class license." I came back to Burbank and graduated from the William B. Ogden's Radio School Burbank and Huntington Beach with my first class ticket in my hand - and man, I was sitting on top of the world! I didn't have a job, but I knew I would be able to find one. After that, I ended up in Oxnard after I walked out of school. There were a couple of spots in between, and then I ended up in San Jose at the first Country station. I have to admit, I was at a loss. I knew nothing about it! BUT! But. They had a rack there of records to play - and once again, I was told, "You don't say anything. Time and temperature, and play the records." And after a couple of months, I realized there was other music besides what they had in the rack up there. I went back in the library, and that's when I discovered people like Don Gibson and Patsy Cline. There was a new record that came out about that time, Dave Dudley with "Six Days On The Road." And that's when I thought, "Oh, I really like this!" And that was it, man. That was it - I knew I didn't want to work in any other format. It just got me. And once the music gets you, you're invested, whether you like it or not. [Editor's Note: Dave Dudley release "Six Days On The Road" in 1963. We have the late Mr. Dudley to thank for 53 years of Bob Kingsley in Country radio.]
5. When and how did you decide to make the transition from on-air personality to focusing on Countdown shows? Was it a natural progression, a lucky break, completely by chance, or was it always the end goal?
I was enjoying being a program director - I really thought I knew how to program! I loved the music, and I thought I was doing a good job. And fortunately, I had a couple of good PD jobs. But it was - I had gone to KFI, and I had been fired yet again! I was programming reels, which paid $25 a week, and I thought, "Well, I have to do something." All of the sudden, I get this call that Tom Rounds - and, I want to just pause here for a second to say that this is one of those life moments, but anyway - Tom had put together Watermark, he and Casey Kasem. I got called by TR simply because a promotion man at Columbia Records at the time, Terry Powell, had apparently had lunch with TR and TR mentioned that they were thinking about a Country countdown. TR asked Terry, "Do you know anybody who knows anything about Country music?" And because I had spent a lot of time getting out and about and going to the different clubs and hanging out at particular restaurants - which was really hip and big-time in L.A. - Terry said, "Yeah, I know this guy that I see all the time, Kingsley." So TR called me, and we started from there. But it was just serendipity. That's exactly what it was. Once again, that's something I had never thought about. I always did countdowns on the different stations I programmed, but doing something nationally really never occurred to me. TR said, "Well, we've got a guy here that Casey likes who is doing it now." This was 1974. But TR said, "We'd really like you to come in and produce it." So I agreed and said, "Well, it means I would need to find a writer, right?" He said yes, and what do you know, my best friend was one of the best writers I knew, Pat Shields. I called Pat and said, "Man, we've got a gig if you're up for it." He said we should try it, so we did. And it didn't actually work too well - we were never able to really break in to any major markets, and on top of that - well, it just was what it was. After about four years of that, right about 1978, TR decided to make a change. He said, "You know, I hear you sitting in from time to time. Why don't you try that gig?" I said okay, and so here I am today. Just like that. It makes me shake my head - that seems like yesterday, and it was 43 years ago now that I started there with TR.
6. We've heard artists say that they know they've "made it" when they hear you boom their name over The Country Top 40. How did you know when you made it?
That's just such a huge compliment, first of all. Just a huge compliment. I personally think I've "made it" many number of times. The first L.A. gig I got, I thought, "Whoa, man! I have arrived!" Then, any number of times that has happened. Then again when I got that producer gig in '74, because I was not only broke, but also pretty much on the street when I got that producer job for "American Country Countdown." Then when I got the voice thing. And then it really started to take off. Then, with ABC - this, well, this was just amazing - when ABC bought Watermark, they bought it primarily for Casey Kasem. But Ed McLaughlin said - well, they didn't tell me. Actually, when ABC took over, they pretty much told me that I was done. They had no interest in a Country show. But apparently somebody said to Ed, "We ought to try. Let's open up the network and see what happens." Well, it took off! And all of the sudden, they wanted to talk to me about a contract! HA! Can you believe that? I remember it like it was yesterday. First, I'm out in the street again, and then they are wanting to talk about a contract! I guess that I've really felt I "made it" many times. And I'm hopeful, to be quite honest, that there's still a milestone or two in my future - so, maybe I haven't completely finished making it.
7. Besides the weekly Country Top 40, you also produce and host specials like your highly popular "Christmas In America." Do you have a favorite portion of the production side of the business? Do you particularly enjoy artist interviews, music selection, show prep, etc? And what do you think is the key to producing a successful radio special?
I really do love the interviews. That's why I love doing the album premieres and the Christmas show. I'm not in Nashville, so Rob Simbeck does a lot of the interviews for me there. But here's a good example. Just last week, as a matter of fact, Eric Paslay was here. He came in to have lunch, and I said, "Well, why don't we go to the studio and visit a little bit?" It turned out to be one of the best interviews I've ever done. He's just so easy to talk with. I find the secret to interviewing is just to be yourself and be prepared. REALLY be prepared! Because there's many times someone will stop short of what you think is a long answer, and you're not ready, and it's almost over-over then, if they've lost interest. I enjoy that part a great deal. I like doing the radio specials, because it's something different, and it gives us an opportunity to travel different roads. I really love the "Christmas In America" special we do each year and the year-end countdown is another that I always look very forward to each year. I definitely enjoy the specials. I really hope people are looking forward to them, too. We put a tremendous amount of work in to them. Let me also say that if it weren't for the crew that I have, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation. I am no kind of writer - I wish I was - I just have no talent for that. And I don't understand how people write songs or how they do that. Not at all. With the scripts I look at each week, I get to interject my thoughts about some things. The production, Ken Halford is one of the greatest engineers of all time. And my wife, Nan, is really seriously involved. She is on it all the time, and it always amazes me to watch her. She's always doing something; she consults with sales, and she's great at that. It's probably one of her strongest points. She's one of the greatest people, if I do say so myself. Twenty-seven years together, now - and still having a good time! I wake up every day wondering what we're going to be doing. The days I do know what we're doing, I look forward to it like it was the first time. But when I get in to that booth and the theme kicks in - man, I am there! I'm just ready! I love talking about the artists and the music and telling the stories.
8. You have had the unique pleasure of hosting a Country countdown show for nearly 40 years. How have you managed to keep the show fresh and relevant as so much about the industry continues to shift?
This is my crew! They come up with new things and different ways to approach it. Pat Shields was the head writer for 30 years, but Pat died a while back. I was really concerned, because he had a vision for it, which I shared. Then along comes a couple of new people, and they have the same thing - except they have a fresh take on it. I guess you wouldn't expect me to say anything else, but right now, I think we are doing some of the best radio work that we've ever done, I think. The stories are fresh, and the writing is just excellent. I just can't say enough about my crew. It's a wonderful business, and I hope I'll be able to maintain the sound that I have. It's going to catch up to me at some point, but hopefully I will recognize it, and that will be the time to split. Again, I don't want to call any names, but there have been a couple recently in the past few years that all of the sudden, they don't sound like they used to sound. And they probably should have walked away before they did. But, as long as I'm healthy - and everything right now is great - I'll continue to have a good time and have more conversations with you about the music.
9. Speaking of shifts and talking having conversations about the music, the genre itself has experienced multiple flips and flows throughout your Countdown career. What perspective can you give us on the current state of the music, and where do you think the format is headed in the coming five or so years?
I think that's a good question, but I think it's a question that has been asked for as long as I've been in the format. Let me give you a good example. In 1963, I was working weekends on and off in Long Beach. Biff Collie was a big, big, big, BIG TIME disc jockey in L.A., and I walked in to the booth one afternoon - I guess I was doing relief for the evening guy or whatever - and Biff was having a fit! He was on the phone, and he was talking with Ray Price about his new single. Ray had a new single out called "Walk Me To The Door," which was the first time that Ray Price had ever used strings. I thought Biff was going to just completely come apart! He actually got in to an argument with Ray Price. Ray said, "Well, I'm just trying something new!" And Biff said, "Well, you need to get The Cherokee Cowboys back in here, or I'm never playing your music again! It's just not right!" And I thought it was a pretty good record. It turned out to be a Top 10 hit. That was the first time I ever noticed anyone talking about any sort of change, and that was pretty significant then, I think. Then we had Lynn Anderson in 1970 with "Rose Garden," and that was a whole different way of coming at it! And I know everyone has discussed this from the beginning to the end, but there really was a time back in the 1980s when I thought, "Well, maybe this really has gone too far." But then, what do you know. Here comes Ricky Skaggs, George Strait, and Randy Travis. There ya have it! And I'm watching it today. It seems to me that any time it goes too far away from Country music - and I primarily mean with the lyric, because with the music there will always be a steel guitar or a fiddle here or there - but if you get too far away, lyric-wise, there's a push back. It just happened recently. I've never seen it fail! All of the sudden, you go too far, and they'll push back. So today, we've got a couple of new ones I've heard like William Michael Morgan that have that bend. It's never going to go away! I remember a producer saying to me one time, "Well, what do we do now? We've done everything!" I told him, "You'll find something interesting to do." I know that I listen to Country music - I listen to [Cumulus Country KPLX/Dallas] The Wolf here all the time. I enjoy listening to that radio station. I happen to really like the jocks, and I find them all entertaining, but the music is why I'm there! I like these people, but the music - that's what keeps me. The music is like anything, though, you're not going to love every one of them. But as long as we've got that Country bend to it, I think we'll be fine. If you get everyone making music outside of the realm, that would be a problem, but quite honestly, I just don't see that ever happening. I've been watching it now for a long, long time. It certainly has changed, no question about that. There's nothing that sounds like Ernest Tubb anymore or Hank Thompson. But there were those who were influenced by that. You talk to these young artists - speaking of William Michael Morgan, he's a young kid! And sometimes when I'm interviewing a new artist, particularly a young one, I'll say, "What music did you listen to that kind of pointed you in this direction?" And sometimes, they have their own, and other times they have what they've been told to say, but almost every one of them will say Waylon Jennings in there somewhere. And when they do that, I have to know, is this real or is it bullshit. With William Michael, we were sitting there talking, and I asked him the question. So he tells me, "I'm a big Waylon fan." And I said, "Oh, really? What's your favorite?" And he told me a couple of titles, and I thought that was a pretty good start. And then, we are in the middle of visiting and he opens his shirt up, and he has this tattoo of Waylon's signature Flying W. Tattooed on him! And that's when I thought, "Okay, buddy. You are for real!" There are quite a few like that, so I think we're going to be fine. Sometimes when the boundary gets pushed too far, there's a push back. And I think that's a good thing. It makes us all rethink what we should be doing. And as long as they keep pushing until they get the push back, I think we'll continue to get fresh, new music and bring in new listeners.
10. As your personal and professional careers have overlapped throughout the years, you've been an advocate for various veterans' causes and charitable efforts. Besides your own time in the armed forces, what makes this cause such a passion point for you?
It started for me in the 1970s when I saw veterans coming back from Vietnam. Seeing the way they were treated was just not good. A friend of mine, one of my very best friends, lost a leg in Vietnam. He came back and saw and felt the same thing, and as I recall, his exact words to me were, "This is bullshit. And we're going to do something about it." So he joined the VA [Veterans Administration] and found that the government was a little difficult. Then he went to the DAV [Disabled American Veterans] and ran in to the same thing. But then, Bruce [Nitsche] got together with some people who were like-minded, and they said, "We're going to start our own organization and do it the way we think it should be done!" So they started the Wounded Warrior Project. It gets me every time - I get emotional - and so I've been with him the whole time, all the way. Whatever they need. I've never been shot at; I can't imagine what that must be like! Bruce told me, "Don't even think about it, man, because if you haven't been there, you don't know." He said, "You can speculate all you want, but if you haven't been there, you don't know." And obviously, that's true. But I've been a huge supporter of him and of the organization since the start. I think everybody should do something. These vets need attention, and I think it's a disgrace what's happening with some of them. I have never spoken to anyone who doesn't agree in this format - and that's how it should be. My God, if you go out and lay your life on the line for something, there should be something to help you when you get back - if you make it back. We could go on and on about this, but that's a big, big deal for me.
Bonus Questions
1. You have a rare gift -- an instantly recognizable, booming, commanding voice. Where is the strangest place you've ever been recognized -- based solely on your voice? Do you have any funny or interesting stories you can share about how you've used your golden voice to your benefit off the air?
I really don't pay attention to my voice or any kind of recognition - and I know maybe people don't believe that, but I really don't. I've just really never thought about it. Now, though, I've heard that from people enough times that I just kind of go, well, okay. But, yes. There was a time. I'm a huge cutting horse enthusiast. Several years ago, there as a big cutting up at Steamboat Springs in Colorado, and three or four of us got together after the deal was over and said, "Hey, let's take our ponies up in the mountains." So, we took off up this trail. There was four or five of us, and we were halfway up the mountain, having a great time, and we heard this noise coming down the mountain on this trail we were on. We were looking at each other, because we couldn't figure out exactly what the noise was - was it an animal? What was it? It turned out to be this kid on a bicycle - a mountain bike - coming down. He sped down, and did a U-turn and spun around right in front of us! And I said, "What are you doing up here?!" And he didn't answer the question - he just said, "You're Bob Kingsley!" Haha! That still blows me away! Everyone just started laughing. That was it! He just said, "You're Bob Kingsley!" So I said, "Yeah..." That's all he wanted, I guess, because he just took off! Just come and gone. There have been a few other times, too, but that stands out. Just out of nowhere, on the side of a mountain in Colorado? Good grief!
2. You join the likes of Orson Welles, Edward R. Murrow, Bob Hope, Paul Harvey, and many others as you are enshrined in the National Radio Hall Of Fame. Who among your fellow Hall Of Famers was your favorite radio personality to listen to throughout the years, or who would you say had the most impact on your career path, and why?
Don Howard, he was a big influence on me; he had a way that was not easy to emulate, although I tried. And there are others I enjoyed that I don't know if they're in the Hall or not - Robert W. Morgan and Dick Whittinghill. I guess the guy that's in there that was most influential - because, when we started doing the countdown, I had to be very careful that I didn't emulate Casey [Kasem]. I took some of the things that they did, and I feel like we were very successful in taking that format and making it our own, as far as the Country presentation was concerned. I mean, a Top 40 countdown is a Top 40 countdown, but still, there were ways to set it apart. So, I have a great admiration for Casey. He's the one who started the thing, and his story telling always transfixed me. Even now, I still listen to some of the older AT40 things, and he definitely was a hero to me.
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