CHAPTER 18

The only other act I remember at the Cotton Carnival that year was Poco. They weren’t happy about playing for free for a radio station and made the whole experience as miserable as possible for me and my crew. I hadn’t requested them, they were offered by their record company. During setup, they tore down a very expensive station logo which was across the front of the stage. I went into a rage, called the record company national guy and told him if their attitude didn’t change in about 30 minutes, they could pack up and hit the road. There were a lot of phones calls going back and forth and finally their road manager found me, apologized, and agreed to pay for the sign. Their performance was lackluster. I made certain all the RKO PD’s knew about the incident on the next conference call. Getting airplay on any of our stations was a struggle to say the least. That was one thing a lot of record guys didn’t understand. If you screwed up with one guy, you screwed up with everybody. Bette Midler got so mad at Paul Drew for not adding one of her records, she slapped him. Later she apologized, but the damage was done. Roberta Flack copped an attitude and all of a sudden she couldn’t pay for a record to go on. We could also be heroes when we all decided a song was gonna be a hit. Dave Sholin is the best set of ears in the business, bar none. His talent isn’t necessarily picking hit songs, although he does that extremely well. The Sholman recognizes new artists and trends. We often argued about songs, but I can honestly say that, most of the time he was right. Dave came to see me in the Spring of ‘79 and couldn’t believe what he heard on the morning show. "Cracked" is the word he used to describe it.

The BeeGees were red hot and I was invited to Fort Worth for the kick off of the tour to promote their new album, "Spirits Having Flown". I don't mind admitting that I was and still am a huge BeeGees fan, so I asked for and received permission to interview Maurice, Robin, and Barry during breaks in rehearsals for the opening night of the tour. The interview would be sent to Dave Sholin and it was to be used to produce a one hour special for the RKO stations exclusively. Marty Lacker's book "Elvis, Portrait Of A Friend" was about to be released I knew the BeeGees were Elvis fans; Marty autographed three of the first copies and I gave them to the BeeGees during the interview, compliments of the RKO PD's. It was a fascinating couple of hours. Barry and Robin did most of the talking about their "coming of age" and finally becoming one of the biggest acts in the world. The rehearsals were just as fascinating. I met The Bee Gees parents and practically everyone in the band and on the crew. The staging was magic: lasers, multi-media, and of course the music. I was mesmerized to see all these things come together on opening night. I stayed on the tour for Houston, Birmingham, then Atlanta. My sister "Miss Ellie" drove over to Birmingham from Atlanta for the show and brought my daughter Meridith. I took t hem backstage and introduced them to The guys. I was deeply saddened by the death of Maurice Gibb.

Miss Ellie, Me, Meridith, and the brothers Gibb in Birmingham.      

T.J. Donnelly was pressuring me to find a morning man or morning show. I suggested Greaseman. We flew Doug and his girlfriend to Memphis, picked them up at the airport in a limo, and provided a suite at the Hyatt Regency (now the Adams Mark). I spent the afternoon with them touring Memphis and monitoring the WHBQ. That evening T.J. and his wife joined us for dinner atop the Hyatt in the revolving restaurant. Doug went back to Jacksonville with an offer in his pocket. My idea was to bring him in and introduce him as a wrestler turned DJ. Wrestling was huge in Memphis. WHBQ television had "live" wrestling in it’s studios every Saturday morning. Bob Landree had developed a pretty close relationship with Jerry "The King" Lawler. Lawler was on Bob’s show almost weekly. I think Bob wrestled him for charity at the Mid-South Coliseum. A couple of years later Andy Kauffman took Lawler to task on national television. I always wished that Lawler had killed Kauffman instead of breaking his neck. Kauffman was one of those guys who made it to national prominence with no talent. Gary Shandling is another. I wish someone would pile drive that fat lipped goof ball. Back to Grease, he went back to Jacksonville and Stan Kaplan did something to keep him there. It cost Stan some money because we were offering more than we’d paid Dees and a multi-year contract. There were a couple of guys in Knoxville who I was really interested in for the morning show. These guys worked at a country station and had unbelievable ratings. I couldn’t budge them. There just wasn’t anyone we could afford who could hold a candle to Dees. There were guys who wanted the job, some on my staff. The problem was, T.J. wanted something new. I always got the impression that this Top 40 business was a little distasteful to T.J.. He belonged to a group called the Idea Club, or something. The group was made up of mostly small and medium market owners and GM’s who got together to discuss ways to save money. I could see that T.J. was going to try to maintain the revenue level achieved by French by "saving" instead of generating dollars.

Maurice White and me before an Earth, Wind, and Fire concert in Memphis

During the Spring ratings period we gave away a Corvette. Bill "Birdman" Thomas got the honor of announcing the winner. Bird and the guy who won struck up an immediate friendship. The guy's daughter was an aspiring singer and Bird took up her cause and became her manager. Bird had pie in the sky dreams of being famous. That’s when his show started going to hell. He eventually left WHBQ and started managing the guy's skating rinks. Prior to that, he was a tireless promoter of his show and the station. Birdman was also great on the air. He could take a boring day, news wise, and make magic. I don’t think he ever slept. Every night he was out in the clubs, shaking hands, smiling, and spreading the word. He wanted to do everything. Hardly a day passed that he didn’t come into my office with an idea. He would get really frustrated with me because we couldn’t do every single one. Birds’ mind was going at full throttle all the time. One night after some time at the Bulle Shotte, Bird drove out to Memphis Aero where they kept The Lisa Marie, one of Elvis’s planes. He managed to sneak onto the tarmac and to his surprise, the door to the plane was open. He climbed in and sat there for a while overcome with awe. A security guard found his car and started looking for an intruder. The guards were accustomed to fans trying to get in to see the plane. Bird was found asleep in the plane. After a lot of talking, the guard let him go. Bird promised him T-shirts, albums, and God knows what else.

Another of Bird’s dreams was to be a stand-up comic. He talked one of the salesmen into persuading the manager of a downtown bar to let him go on before the band and "warm the audience up". The sales guy arranged for the Q crew members who wanted to attend his debut to sit together and get complimentary drinks. Rusty Black and I decided that we would take a big boom box and a cassette of laugh tracks just in case Bird bombed. We got carried away and started playing the laughs immediately. Bird really wasn’t that bad but he was really mad at us for what we did. As I mentioned earlier, Bird left WHBQ to manage skating rinks. After a couple of years, he returned to radio in Panama City at WPFM. I was a General Manager by that time and Bird hooked me up with a friend who was manager of the Holiday Inn at Navarre Beach and I set up a trade so I could spend time on the beach. My first trip down, I met Bird in Panama City at a bar right on the beach. As we reminisced, he looked at me and said "I’ve got cancer". I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say, but before I could say anything he said "don’t worry I’m gonna kick cancer’s ass". I believed him. If anyone could, Bird could. Over the next few years we were in and out of touch with each other. He’s called me from Albuquerque at 3:00AM wanting advice. He told me the cancer was in remission. he said the reason he hadn’t called in a while was because he was receiving chemo treatments. He never wanted anyone around or in touch with him during that time. He’d remarried and was really in love with the lady, but after about a year he wonder why she wouldn’t kiss him on the lips at times. Finally he discovered that she dipped. I wanted to laugh so bad, but it really hurt him.

I was sales manager for a station in Augusta in 1994 and one of our regional clients was a department store chain based in Montgomery, Alabama. I knew Bird was back at WHHY-FM because we had spoken several times after he moved back there. He was thrilled when I called and told him I was coming to town to make a sales call. I had not seen him since Memphis, nearly fourteen years previous. He had told me that the cancer was active and he was taking chemo again, but he didn’t say it in a morbid or maudlin way. It was just sort of matter of fact. We planned to meet at a bar where he was doing a remote the night I got to town. I walked in and he rushed me and gave me a big bear hug. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was so skinny and wearing a cap to cover his baldness. Other than the physical changes he was the same guy I’d seen in action in Memphis. He was all over the bar working the crowd. I met several of the staff members. We ate and drank then a young lady came over and whispered something to him. I looked at him and winked and a big smile broke across his face. "As you can see the cancer hasn’t spread over my entire body!" he said. We laughed and he asked me to come by the station the next morning after my sales call, then he and his friend left. I heard him on the air on the way to my appointment the next morning, but when I was finished with my business, he’d gone off the air early. When I arrived at the station I saw an entirely different guy. I could see that he wasn’t doing well at all. He had become very ill while on the air, but waited until I got there to leave because he wanted to introduce me to the people at the station. He embarrassed me with compliments then loaded me up with T-shirts and hats and we hugged goodbye. That was the last time I saw him alive.

Not more than a few weeks had passed when I got a call from Rad Dodson, one of the salespeople at WHHY. Bird was dying. I asked if I could call him. He said sure, but I might not be able to speak with him. I called Baptist Hospital in Montgomery and the nurse told me he couldn’t take calls. I told her to tell him I called. Lad called me the next day and told me that he had been there when I called and when Bird seemed lucid, he delivered my message. He said Bird smiled and then slipped into a semi conscious state. He said that as Bird drifted in and out of the effects of morphine, he sit up and start doing his radio show in the bed. The guy said it was so funny but sad at the same time. "WHHY, this is the Birdman and you’re my fifteenth caller". Bird died in his sleep.

The morning after his death, Montgomery was in mourning. Bird was an institution there. He worked tirelessly for many charities. It was Bird who organized and played in the George "Goober" Lindsey Charity Golf Tournament each year. Bird had tons of plaques and certificates of appreciation for his community activities. WHHY opened the phones to listeners and for hours people called in with stories of how Bill "Birdman" Thomas had touched their lives. They called me and asked me to comment. I had a hard time talking because I was so sad. Bird was always very complimentary of me in and out of my presence. I’ll never forget how excited he was when I offered him a job at WHBQ. He thanked me for days. Bird is one of my favorite all time jocks. He was just plain fun to listen to. He was silly at times, but you could always hear the sincerity in his voice. He was a true radio talent and could have probably been really big. By the time WHBQ came along for him, personality Top 40 was long gone. Only at a place like the Q, could he and the other nuts on my staff get away with playing so few songs, using so many drop-ins, and talking so much. That’s what made WHBQ great, we entertained.

Before he died Bird told Rad that he wanted to be cremated and he wanted his ashes spread at Augusta National. I called Paul Mayer who worked for a station in Augusta and told him we had to do it, but the problem was HOW? Getting into Augusta National was impossible for peons like us. We thought of getting a plane and flying over, but who could afford it and also that wasn’t really appropriate. On the Saturday after Bird’s service, Rad drove to Augusta with Bird in a box about the size of a gallon of milk. Tad Griffin, former Q crew jock, flew in from Richmond. Bob Raleigh a guy who had worked with Bird at another station joined us at the Kryspy Kreme on Washington Road. We had decided that we could get close enough to the security fence on Berkman Road near the 4th hole to be able to throw Bird and maybe hit the green. We were nervous because security around Augusta National is very tight. There are surveillance cameras about every fifty yards. Rad was elected to do the toss, he was younger and also taller. We parked on a side street and walked down to Berkman Road, crossed, jumped a ditch and Rad threw the contents of the Bird box as hard as he could. Bird was airborne and parts of him hit the green, we think. We went to a Mexican restaurant nearby and spend the afternoon toasting Bird with many rounds of margaritas. If one of us had shown the slightest bit of emotion, there would have been table full of blubbering drunks. Every year I watch the Masters and say hi to Bird. He’s right where he wanted to be. On 4 with one shot; I wonder if that's a club record. I love that guy.

11

LISTEN TO A COMPOSITE AIR CHECK OF WHBQ IN 1979  AT REELRADIO.COM.

 IN THE MARTY JOHNSON COLLECTION

CHAPTER 19

RETURN TO TITLE PAGE